


Nameless

by shellebelle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestor-Era, Ancestors, F/M, Severe Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellebelle/pseuds/shellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t have a name, but then, you don’t need one. Well, that isn’t precisely true, and hasn’t been true since you lost your lusus several sweeps ago. But the thought of you not having a name is cooler than just...not remembering what it is.</p><p>
  <i>which you don’t--</i>
</p><p>Because there’s no one there to call you by it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ==>sweeps ago, but not many

==>sweeps ago, but not many

You are a mighty huntress and you are out with your lusus, a beautiful white furred fang-beast. You are the best hunting team ever. You are tiny but fierce with your knives, even if sometimes your lusus has to snag you by the tunic to keep you out of harm's way. He doesn't have to do it that often! 

You don't eat much, but your fang-beast lusus does, and you go hunting many times per perigee to get enough food for him. You've learned how to cure skins as well, and make things from the remnants of such beasts. 

When you come back from curing skins and disposing of blood and guts, your lusus, sated with food and happy, will pounce on you with his huge paws, holding you down as he cleans you with his warm, raspy tongue and you laugh because it tickles and it feels good after a long, weary day. He spends a lot of time on your long, tangled hair, then carries you to your recuperacoon, dropping you into the sopor slime to sleep. 

You always fell asleep giggling. 

Till that night. 

  


The horrorterrors come early and strike hard, so badly that you struggle up from your sopor-sleep. 

But the screams you hear are not horrorterrors. Something has crashed into your hive, and your lusus is dying on the floor, his yellow-green blood decorating the walls, and you rush over to him, tears already starting, “No, no no, please, no...” He mrowls and tries to lift his head. You put your arms around him and try to move him, to lift him in your arms, but while you are strong, you are not that strong. He butts his head against you. He can't speak, of course, but you know what he's saying.

 __Go._ _

You __can't__ go. You cry and cling but there's more noise and you pick your head up, looking towards the door. You can hear growls in the next room. 

The lusus who has killed yours has blue blood, and is wounded, weak on the floor, but not dying, like yours. There is a voice. There is another troll in your hive. _“That'll teach your lusus to snag a highblood's kill.”_ Both the troll and his injured lusus leave your hive, preferring to let the culling drone have its way with you. 

Moments pass. You stay huddled and hiding in your lusus' fur. 

There is scratching at the front door. 

Your lusus is wheezing. He lifts his paw and whacks you weakly. 

__Go._ _

You shake your head, trembling and your lusus __growls__ at you. 

_GO!_

You burst into tears and run, grabbing your knives and heading off into the forest. 

 

==>run

 

You are hiding in the trees. You know that at any moment they could come for you. You know that you should run while you can. 

 

But you have to look. You have to _see._

 

The culling drones are destroying your hive, leaving your lusus' body to disintegrate in the open. They're knocking down you hive, your shelter, your home. You're young enough to believe that some day you'll find a home again, but when a drone takes the name plaque off of your door and smashes it, you do truly believe they've destroyed your name once and for all. And just to make sure you know that, they cross your name off of their list, large black lines through the yellow-green of your name. And then one culling drone looks up and though you cannot see its eyes you know it's looking right at you. 

 

You run. 

 

==>be culled

 

It looks like you will be, even though you are very fast, and you are running. But the drone is so much faster. And you are terrified and the terror makes you stumble, which you do, landing in the water. You leap up to your feet, but you're not fast enough. Not fast enough by half to escape. 

 

You see the blade in front of you before you run into it, and turn around, trembling. The culling drone is tall, thin and dark hooded, with a scythe that is taller than it, a scythe that is poised on your shoulder, and it is so very

BIG 

and you are

so 

very

 

_small_

 

and you back up and back and back till you can't go back anymore and there's a culling blade at your neck. 

Your knives, clutched hard in your hands, will not help you. You are too little to even reach the drone. You are five sweeps old and you are looking up, up, up at your death. 

__But no, but no! This is not how the story of a great huntress ends!_   _Your brain is_ screaming _at you to do something, to_ move _, to_ run!  
_

You are terrified but there's a moment where you can escape in the split second moment before the scythe swings towards your neck. The culling drone draws it back and you move in the same direction. You end up taking half the skin off of your shoulder but you keep running and running. 

And then you hide. You are small, so small, and you hide in the cleft of a rock, heedless of your bleeding shoulder, ignoring the pain, closing your eyes against the brightness of the day. You can hear the roar of the culling drone, and you're terrified it will smell you out, find you in your hiding place and kill you here, leaving you to rot, and no one would ever find you...or care much, if they did. 

You curl up in on yourself as tightly as you can, and cry till you pass out from blood loss. 


	2. Wake Up

==>Wake Up.

It is dark, and you are cold. Your shoulder burns with pain. You hear a low keening noise and it's annoying you. 

You only manage to stop the sound when you realize you're making it. 

You are thirsty, and you are weak. Any sort of beast could happen along and kill you. But if you don't move, you'll die anyway. 

You only get a few feet away from the cleft in the rock before you can't move anymore. Your shoulder has reopened and you're bleeding again. You might die from blood loss before you can be culled, and perhaps that's better. It might be better to just...go to sleep. 

But no, your lusus didn't intend for you to just _give up_ , so fuck that. 

You blink your eyes and listen and smell. The plants just in front of you are edible and so you eat them. You need something to revive you, to keep you going. 

Your lusus has trained you well. 

As you lie there, trying to summon the strength to go on, you plan your next move. Your knives are still clutched in your hands, and you're glad you haven't let them go. You look around the night forest, and try to remember where you are. You sniff the air again. It takes more concentration than you should have to figure out what to do next. You need healing plants, you need water and shelter from the savage daytime sun. 

After that, you can concentrate on living. You find a cave. You find a source of water. You keep hunting for edible plants until your shoulder heals enough for you to be able to hunt again. You find the medicinal plants you need to heal your shoulder faster. 

Troll bodies heal relatively fast, though it does take you a few days to be able to use your shoulder again. 

Once you are able, you begin to hunt. Small creatures at first, just enough to feed you and provide you with some small skins to make some clothes. 

Soon, you've gotten the hang of it, and you begin to play pretend. You are a great huntress. You are a vicious pack leader. You aren't even a troll! You are a cat-girl, wild fearless fangbeast girl! 

It helps. Playing pretend helps you not curl up in a hopeless ball, it helps you not collapse in sobs when you think about your dead lusus and how scared you are. It helps you go on without anyone to talk to, without anything to distract you from grief. 

Two months after you lost your lusus, you come upon a great wild fangbeast. It takes a few days of tracking and hunting but in an unparallelled feat of cunning and skill, you bring it down, take it's pelt for your own. You cure it and dry it and wear it as if it were your own skin. The skull of the great beast serves as a hat of sorts. Sometimes, you hit yourself with the back of one heavy, preserved paw. It reminds you of how your lusus used to paw you and it's comforting to you. 

You sink into your game more and more, staying away from villages for the most part. Over the long perigees that you are alone, you live moment to moment, narrating your adventures in your head in the third person for a long time. 

And you forget. 

After a while, you forget what your lusus looked like. Well, not entirely. You remember that she was large and white and had yellow blood like yours. But you forget the angle of her muzzle, the way her purr sounded when she was pleased with you. You forget the way her tongue felt when she was cleaning you. You forget things like how it felt to sleep in a recuperacoon. How it felt to write, your ambition to write adventure stories, like the stories you make up in your head now. You forget the friends you'd just started to make. 

You forget words. You forget what you called things that you don't have anymore: _ablution trap, thermal hull, husktop, recuperacoon, respite block._ You forget, because it hurts to remember, and you don't need those things anymore, right? 

After a while, you don't narrate mentally in the third person anymore. You're forgetting words too much, and you aren't quite sure of your name, and it takes away from the drama. You replay adventures like movies in your mind with no spoken or mental dialogue, no voice-overs. 

Language is becoming very difficult, not that you're trying very hard. You live in the jungle, moving deeper into it by the day. You hunt, you eat. You survive and you sure as hell don't need language when you don't see another troll for perigees and perigees. 

When you realize that you don't really remember your own name, it really doesn't concern you. 

You don't need a name when you're alone. 


	3. survive

==>survive

And so you do. 

You don't have a name and you don't need one. You don't need to speak, either, because when you're alone, you don't need words. When you don't have a name, you don't have anyone to talk to, because you really don't exist. 

But yet, you're alive, you're alive and still clever enough to decide that you will need money to survive, to get your weapons sharpened, to occasionally buy clothing that you don't make yourself. You have always been good at concocting medicines, for when either you or your lusus became injured on your wild hunts. You hollow out tree nuts of their meat and clean them well to contain your medicines, the little anti-infection ointments, soothing balms, and healing salves. 

The first time you go into a village to sell things on market day, you are terrified. Even if you could remember words, your mouth is so tightly shut you could never speak. You don't know what the blood quantum is here: mainly highblood or mainly lowblood. You walk with a stooped-over, fearful shuffle and set out your wares on a patch of street that is a little bit out of the way, almost unnoticable. 

You don't belong here, and you know it. 

You're still noticed, of course, because most trolls will notice a stranger. Since you don't speak, and you barely look anyone in the eye, most trolls just assume that you're feeble-minded or mute, and many of them take just enough pity to buy from you, pointing at what they want, you holding up fingers for price, you shaking your hand for _no_ , palm out for _yes_. 

At the end of the day, you buy a few things, because you don't need money to live in the jungle. You buy a couple of articles of clothing, a pair of boots, and you get your knives sharpened. You buy a tiny chunk of soap before disappearing into the jungle again. 

You're careful, but there's only so much careful you can be before you go into the wrong village on the wrong evening. Upon occasion, you stumble into highblood enclaves, and they can _smell_ your too-yellow, too-green blood. There are a couple who actually do buy from you and go on their way, but then the big ones come, the blue- and indigo-bloods, but as soon as you see a gleam of metal, you've absconded, leaving behind your wares. You go tearing into the jungle and hiding there, a tiny, mute thing in skins and furs, praying to whatever gods have forsaken you that when daylight comes, they'll leave off looking for you. 

Most of the time, they do. Sometimes, it's best if you don't come down from the trees. Most of the time, it's easy. You don't have a home, friends, or a lusus for them to threaten. You escape into the forest, go deeper, remember that you should stay away from that particular village. 

You live with silence. 

And time passes. It's easy to forget how long it's been since your lusus died, because the days flow into perigees and perigees flow into sweeps, and sweeps pass without acknowledgment or celebration You become a great hunter because you want to survive, and you want to survive because you know there's a part you must play, somewhere, some time because the story doesn't end like this. You remember reading books. You remember that none of the best stories end with the main character in obscurity, unnamed and unremembered.

Someday, you believe, you will find it again. You believe this to your very core. And so you wait and you survive. 

Speech has left you, and you don't miss it much. Not for a long, long time. 


	4. Twist

==>Twist

The jungle is cooling with the approach of evening. The dim light is cool on your eyes, after trying to sleep the day away in too bright, too warm. You are tired and so you know that you must be on your guard even more than usual, even if this is the safer village you go to. 

You know that you're just a little green-blooded girl and you are not very valuable and certainly not very big, though you've gotten bigger since your lusus died. You have no idea how many sweeps it's been, only that you've passed childhood and left it behind some little time ago. No matter how old you are, though, one highblood in a bad mood can certainly ruin one's day. 

You set up in your usual spot. People know you here now, and you have regular customers. The people who had once bought from you only out of pity now bought from you because they liked what you made, and they told their friends about you. You make quite a bit of money now, and your wares are gone in under an hour. 

This is a good thing, because people are headed away from the marketplace. Curious, you follow. There seems to be someone speaking up ahead. This is highly unusual for this village. 

You hope there won't be bloodshed. You worry your lower lip with your teeth and pull down the fang-beast head you wear down close to your eyes, pulling the pelt closer around you as you shiver. 

You shouldn't be here. You don't belong here. 

But sometimes you just want to be around people, even if they don't notice you or care that you're around. You want to know what it feels like, sometimes, to just belong somewhere. 

And then you hear it. 

==>Listen

The troll who is speaking is young, not much older than you. He isn't very big and his horns are so tiny you can barely see them. He makes big gestures with his hands and arms and his voice is loud, loud and forceful. Ordinarily, that would make you run in the opposite direction. 

But his  _ words. _

His words flood into you and write themselves a mile high in your think pan. They get under your skin and tug you. They make you  _ want _ and you haven't wanted  _ anything _ in a long time. 

You gently push your way up to the front of the crowd, wanting to see and hear more of what is turning a key inside of you. No one seems to notice you. 

His words are crazy. He's talking about compassion and equality across the entire hemospectrum. Respect and a world where no one has to live in fear of being culled. That perhaps the road to the advancement of the race depends on something more than survival of the fittest. It's insane. It makes your blood pusher beat erratically. 

Your hands, empty of their knives, twitch and itch. They haven't done that for a long, long time, not since your pens and books got burned with the rest of your hive. 

There's a motion beside you. A tall, willowy jade-blooded troll is looking down on you. You cower, but meet her eyes. She doesn't look offended by your proximity. She looks at you and the corners of her mouth twitch up into a smile, ever so brief, before turning back to the speaker.  

You watch and listen.  The words are getting complicated now, and your brow furrows. Your fingers twitch again. His words are twisting in your think pan, simmering there, simmering like a rainbow of things all mixed together.  All of the colors, all of them, where once there was only green and black.

Your body loses the slight hunched-over stance you’d adopted sweeps ago to hide yourself in a crowd and you stand up tall--well, you only come up to the jade-blood’s shoulder. But you stand up straight and look with wide eyes, taking in the words and the voice and the face and eyes and hands.

Words flood your think pan again and you close your eyes against the onslaught and your hands close against the itch, and one word pushes itself through the mess and out of your lips, the first word you've made in sweeps: 

“ _Write.”_   


You stay till he’s done talking. Someone’s invited him into his hive, and you watch till he’s disappeared into it, along with the jade-blood, who gives you a curious look before she goes in.

You turn and hurry back to the market.  The stationery booth is  small and out of the way and it takes you a while to find it. You pause in front of the booth while  you remember precisely what  you need.

Paper. Pens, ink.

And you point at what you need and give the money, and then you find a street lamp to sit beneath while night falls and you work out how to write before his words fade from your think pan and are lost forever.

==>write

It takes you all night. Some of the words have only come out with great difficulty, and tears of frustration may have dyed green blotches on the paper. But you've written, and you're certain that some of the words are misspelled but it doesn’t matter. You've written his words down, and your heart rests.

You find a place to hide  outside the house the speaker had gone into, to watch and see  what he’ll do, where he'll go.

It’s nearly nightfall when he comes out, and you are sleepy, but you watch, and he and the jade blooded troll go off, out of the village, keeping to the forest.

You duck into the jungle and follow, even though you are exhausted. You’ll hunt for yourself, and wait. He is the other part of your story. The twist in the plot you have been waiting for, for sweeps and sweeps, waiting.

You don’t have a name, and you don’t need one, because you have his _words_ and right now, that's enough.


	5. follow

==>follow

You follow them as close as you dare. It's been a long time since you have actively sought out the company of another troll, and you aren't quite sure how to do it, and so you don't make contact right away. You hunt and survive in unfamiliar jungle because he is leading you to do so. You follow, and stay hidden, and only show yourself when he speaks. 

This goes on for over a perigee. You've never been happier in your life. 

One of the villages where he speaks is more dangerous for you. The balance runs more towards blue than green and you are afraid, very afraid. But you are  _ more _ afraid of losing track of him, of those words that are giving you life and purpose. 

You hunch down into a corner, hidden, out of the way, but keeping him in view as he speaks. You need to see him, you need to hear him. The whispers of the crowd inform you that they call him the Signless (how can he not have a _ sign _ , something even you still have?), and that the female troll with the jade blood is always, always with him. The crowd calls her 'The Dolorosa' for her constant solemn expression. 

But then everything falls away when he begins to speak. You begin to write, huddled over your book, writing quickly, using a simple turn of phrase to describe how the crowd responds, how your  _ blood-pusher _ responds to him. You look up briefly. 

The Dolorosa is looking at you curiously. You huddle over your manuscript again, writing carefully. You’re obscurely afraid that she’ll make you stop. But you feel...alive. For the first time in your life you feel alive and almost happy.

While he’s speaking, you do feel happy, happy and contented and you wonder if this is how a moirail is meant to make you feel. You wouldn't know—it's been sweeps since you've come close to another living troll.

You only know that this is what you were meant to do. 

The two of them are invited into another house to spend the hours of day, and you hide in the jungle again to sleep, waking close enough to dusk so that you do not miss them when they leave town, and you follow again. 

The Signless' companion notices you following but for some reason, she hasn't told him yet. You do not care, as long as they will let you, you will follow them. 

That night, you leave a freshly killed swine-beast beside their cookfire as they are out fetching water, and let them alone. 

==>be the Signless

“What the fuck is this?” you ask, when the two of you return to your fire. The swine-beast is lying on a clean bit of cloth, butchered well and cleaned expertly.

The woman you have called 'mother' for your entire life smiles a knowing smile. It makes you growl. “You know something! What's going on?” 

She goes to stoke the cookfire—you'll need a hotter fire than this. “We have a follower.” 

“Well, no  _ shit _ , mom, we have lots of followers!” You help her with the meat—gog, this is enough for a month!--and sit down.

She just smiles that little smile she has when you make your all-too-frequent mistakes in assumption.

“...wait, you mean a literal  _ follower _ , don't you?” 

She chuckles. It's a pleasant sound but it irritates the fuck out of you sometimes. Like now. 

You hate when she knows things you don't. You fold your arms over your chest and glare at her. “Spill!” 

“She's been following us for about a month now. She writes down every blessed word you say.” She pauses. “But she's never spoken a word to me and I only catch little glimpses of her now and then.” 

Your brow furrows. “What does she look like?” Surely, if she's been following you for a month, you'd have seen her! 

“She looks like a huntress.” And that was all she said. 

You brood while the meat is cooking.  _ A huntress.  _ Thanks a lot, Mom, that tells me a whole fucking lot. 

You don't want her to come any closer. Gog knew that it was only a matter of time before this whole thing blew up in his face. You don't want any of the people who believe you to come to harm. You pull your knees to your chest and lean your chin on them. You can't help it. You fucking  _ care _ about them. Hell, you even care about the assholes who want to kill you. 

What kind of fucked up thing is that? 

But it's your vision. You want to see it, before you die, but you don't think you're going to. You want to see an indigo-blooded Subjuggulator be friends with a brown-blooded beast-communer. You want to see the fucking Condesce pal around with the lowest of the redbloods, and be fucking  _ happy _ about it! It's stupid and ridiculous and it makes perfect  _ fucking _ sense. Why did people have to go on culling each other and wasting lives when they could be making Alternia better for everyone? 

You huff, and wrap your cloak around you. 

The troll you call “mother” looks over at you. “I know,” she says softly. 

You know she does. She knows so much about you, knows you, sometimes, better than you do yourself. 

You huff again. 

It's fucking  _ obnoxious.  _

==>Signless: Speak

Well, you would if you could do anything but swear right now. 

Sometimes, you just wish you could show everyone what you see in your dreams. You wish you could just hold them and somehow just let them know how much better things would be if they would just drop the whole stupid fucking hemospectrum system. 

Your compassion is sometimes  _ majorly fucking tried _ by the very people you care about. 

“Ah, gogdammit fuck!” Some fucker has just fucking thrown a motherfucking  _ pipe _ _ bomb _ at you and you're glad it didn't hit home but you are also pissed that it burned your upper arm something good. You have friends in this particular village, good on them, and they get you out of the rioting crowd. 

The teal blooded troll (a fucking Legislacerator, can you beat that?) doesn't have much in the way of medicines, but she did get you off the street before the situation could get much worse. 

Mother is trying, but she can only bathe your arm in cool water and purse her lips unhappily as she watches you be in pain. 

Even in your pain, however, you notice when there's a commotion outside of the door. You look at your mother, and you ask with your eyes to go see what the fuck is going on... 

Two of the teal-blood's large friends have a tiny little scrap of female troll between them. Her hands are bunched together in front of her. You see the glimmer of recognition from your mother, who goes to approach. 

Even though you are in pain, you suspect this is your “follower”, as your mother has described her. 

She is wearing the pelt of a great fang-beast, the head worn as a hat, two huge fangs framing her tiny, elfin face, little upturned nose, wide, green eyes. She's tiny and wearing skins and rags, and she's grubby, all except for her hands, which are exquisitely clean. They are clutching a tiny jar of something. 

Your mother murmurs to her, and she silently holds out the little jar. Your mother nods at them to let her go and gestures that the little huntress should follow. She follows, ducking down her head, sinking into a crouch, making sure that, even though you are seated and she is standing, that her head is not higher than yours, an all-too-familiar gesture you've seen lower-caste trolls make. When she's closer, you can smell her. She smells of jungle and musk and dirt. It's not unpleasant. You can see her face, grubby and pretty, with dark smudges under her eyes. She looks as if she sleeps as little as you do. 

She places her small burden on the floor and reaches out for your arm with her clean hands. She has very sharp claws, but she's using the pads of her fingers, very carefully. She exposes the burn on your arm and then removes the cover from the jar. 

“Fuck, that stuff stinks,” you growl. Her hands twitch away and you can see her swallow. She doesn't look at you, hasn't really raised her eyes from the floor since she came in. 

You feel like an asshole. “I'm sorry.” 

She shakes her head and dips her fingers (trembling, they're trembling) into whatever the fuck that stuff is and she spreads a liberal amount over your burned arm. You hiss as it stings all to hell, but then she blows over it with cool breath, and instantly, the pain stops and you sigh with the release of pain. It's only momentary, though, and she dips her fingers again as the pain returns, putting on a second coat, stinging again and then cooling as she blows across it. A drop of the stuff falls on your trousers. 

She wipes it up with her hair, though the Dolorosa makes as if to stop her. 

After she applies a third coat and blows on it, she sits back on her haunches like a tiny purr-beast and waits. She makes a motion of her arm, as if asking you to move it and see if it hurts. 

You try your arm. You can't even feel the burn anymore. You lean over. “Thank you. It feels wonderful.”

She smiles, the soft innocence of it combating with her grubby cheeks and the fangs framing her face. She gets up, as if to go away again. 

The Dolorosa stops her. “Do not go.” She moves as if to touch her, and it hurts you to see how the little huntress flinches at your mother's gentle touch. “Will you show him your book?” 

You see the tiny huntress press her lips together, her body shifting weight as if she wants to run away, but in the end, she reaches in and brings out a slightly battered bound notebook. The Dolorosa gestures to you. 

She sinks into the submissive crouch again as she approaches you. “Hey,” you say gently, “stand up. Let me see what you've written.” You hold your hands flat, so she can put the book into them, instead of taking it from her hand. You know there are sometimes subtleties to dealing with skittish people, and she's quite possibly the most skittish person you've ever encountered. 

She straightens up, not that it makes much difference. She's still little. But she places the book in your hands. She still isn't looking directly at you, but one thing at a time. 

“Thank you.” 

Your mother gestures for the girl to sit next to her. She sits, but on the floor, leaning her head on the chair cushion she was intended to sit on. You wonder how long it has been since she'd sat on a chair. 

Opening her book, you notice how the first two pages are written as if by a barely schoolfed wiggler, the letters blocky and crooked and the words misspelled...but. But. 

She'd captured everything, in just a few words. The words were simple, deceptively so, but every word of your sermons (sometimes spelled phonetically) were recorded, and other things too: the mood of the crowd, the inflection of your voice. And, shining through everything, this little huntresses' belief. Her belief in what you were saying. 

She wanted the world you describe in your sermons, the world you'd seen in visions. She didn't say it in so many words, but it was all over the way she wrote. 

“Fuck, she's got me down pat,” you murmur. “What's your name?” 

You look up when she doesn't answer you, but the huntress is fast asleep, the paws of the pelt she is wearing hiding her face. 


	6. Huntress: sleep

==>Huntress: sleep

You have not slept properly in days. You have been following, taking tiny cat-naps so as not to lose the trail of this man and his companion. They're the first trolls you've cared about in sweeps and sweeps and you _will not_ lose them. But now, with the strange scent of them in your nose, you are sleeping.

And you dream.

 _You are flying. You've never dreamed about flying before. You are flying over a blood soaked field. There are many colors on the field, and it makes you sad. So many colors._

 _Suddenly, you're on the ground, and in front of your dying lusus. You can see your hands as you try to lift his head, and they're your hands as they are now._

 _There's a growl from behind you, and you turn your head. The indigo-blooded troll grins at you with bloody teeth. “Don't take a highblood's kill,” he says, and swings the scythe back..._

You wake with a start in the orange light of midday, your hands pressed to your chest, breathing hard, whimpering a little. You are not in the forest. You do not know where you are.

“Little one.”

Ordinarily, you would be lashing out with your knives, but you know that voice. Not as well as the Signless' voice, but you know the Dolorosa. You sit back and look up at her, your eyes squinting in the too-bright middle-of-the-day. “Oh, little one,” she says, a sort of affection in her tone.

Carefully, she came forward. “Come. Let's take this off for a little while.” You make no move to stop her removing the fang-beast pelt you always wear. She seemed to have no trouble with the brightness of the light of day. “We will have to leave while it is yet day, little one. He is still sleeping, but I will soon need to wake him.” She slips her fingers into your hand. “Come,” she says again.

She leads you to the ablution trap, which, after so many sweeps, is foreign to you. You watch the ablution trap fill with water in fascination. You don't remember the water being so clear or so warm, ever. The Dolorosa sits on the edge of the bathtub and begins to pour water gently on your head, smoothing it off of your forehead so it doesn't get into your eyes. Your hair is a tangled and mostly matted mess and it's been sweeps since you've taken a comb to it.

But she doesn't seem to mind it. She wets your hair down with infinite patience, washes and conditions it thoroughly, combing her long, elegant fingers through it, and it's so strange to have it lie flat.

“Oh, little one, don't cry.”

You didn't know you were, but yes. You are most definitely crying, green-tinted tears flowing down your cheeks and your shoulders hunching in. You are now conscious of the tiny, sad sounds you're making. The Dolorosa shooshes you gently as she gets you out of the bathtub and wraps you in a towel. She helps you get dressed, then dries your tears. She does not ask you questions, for which you are grateful, though you know the questions will eventually come.

You are startled by the appearance of the troll whose hive this is, startled and shy but you simply stand by the Dolorosa, clutching her arm as she talks to the teal-blooded troll, thanking her for her tremendous hospitality, and expressing hope that she would not be given any trouble for it in the town. They converse pleasantly, and you simply marvel at how she's able to speak so _nicely._ It's a mystery to you.

You do not know your way around this strange hive, but you want to find the Signless again. You sniff the air and release the Dolorosa's arm to find him, though she soon follows, and steers you in the proper direction back to the room you fell asleep in before. You find your book where he laid it aside and take it up again, folding it into your arms across your chest while the Dolorosa wakes him up.

“Ah, shit, mom...five more minutes?”

You smile as he gets up and you sit out of the way by your folded up pelt, stroking the fur to soothe yourself. Your mind feels all full of too many thoughts and too many words, and there are so many emotions running around, emotions where you just want to talk to the Signless, to walk beside him and listen to him talk, where you just want to curl up on the Dolorosa's lap and cry till you're done, to tell her everything.

The pelt reminds you of who and what you are.

The Signless is not precisely cheerful in the morning and you sit and watch for a while, but when he moves his injured arm and winces again, you are there in a moment with the ointment again. He looks over at you and blinks as if he doesn't remember you, but you know he does, so you're not sure why he's staring.

“What's your name?”

You don't answer for a while because you don't really remember how to make words with your mouth very well. Instead, you smooth ointment over the healing burn, then blow over the surface. It should be good for a while now. You sit down again on the floor, stroking the pelt.

You don't acknowledge when the Signless takes the Dolorosa out for a private chat.

==>be the Signless

The first thing out of your mouth when you get the Dolorosa alone is “Mom, is she coming with us?” You don't really know whether to be worried or hopeful about this.

“Of course she is. She'll just follow us anyway, and this way we can keep an eye on her.” She looks at you. “I thought you would be pleased.”

You huff out a breath. “Mom, she needs _care._ ” Who knew how long it had been since she'd been cared for? How long had it been since she'd seen a recuperacoon or an ablution trap?

“Until the world changes, where will she find that, dearest? She has all the earmarks of an orphaned troll, and she has been so for many sweeps.”

“Has she spoken to you?”

“Not a word. Though...when I was bathing her, she did start to cry.” The Dolorosa's brow furrowed.

“Are you certain we should take her with us?”

“I think her blood would be on our hands if we did not. She has demonstrated to us that she can largely care for herself...and she has demonstrated to me that she would rather prefer to have some help.”

You grin at her. “You want another person to take care of.”

She folds her arms. “That is not even a thing.”

“Bullshit, it so is. You want to braid her pretty pretty hair.”

She purses her lips, hiding a smile (not very well), and she punches you in your un-burned arm. “We need to go before it becomes full dark. We do not want a repeat of yesterday.”

“I'm still not sure about this...”

“You worry about too much,” she says, and pats your cheek.

And that was that. You sigh. “Let me get my shit together, and we'll go.”

==>Nameless: follow

You walk behind them, watching for movement in the jungle. You realize that you are farther away from the former site of your hive than you've ever been before and it makes you a little sad, but the sad is outweighed by the joy of traveling with the Prophet and his companion.

You have elected yourself the huntress for the group, so when you see something stir in the bushes, you launch yourself after it, your knives flashing as you pounce. You are not looking for large game, since you must keep moving, but you usually make sure your pride eats meat most days.

It's a few days of traveling and getting used to each other before the Signless looks over at you with the intent to speak to you again. You have been going over words in your mind, testing them out on your lips silently. You know how other people talk but you are not used to yourself speaking. You look back at him.

“What's your name?”

You hunch your shoulders a little. Words, words. “Dooooon’t. ...uhmemmmber.” Your brow furrows. You’re pretty sure you got that second word wrong. And that you’re not supposed to draw the word-sounds out for so long. But making words is more complicated than thinking them...if you bother thinking the words at all. You look down at your feet, feeling strange. You don’t know if you’re just embarrassed or if you’re ashamed. Those are complicated feelings and you haven’t had those sorts of feelings in a long time. You blink back tears and fall silent again.

==>be the Signless

Her voice was small and dusty-sounding. That would be pitiful enough if it weren't for what she actually said.

She doesn't remember her own name. How many sweeps has she been wandering by herself? You think about that for a few minutes, and then look over at her. Her lips are pursed and she's blinking. She pulls at something in you, and you aren't sure what to do now.

This is the same thing you and the Dolorosa always do from village to village: you walk and travel together, a largely silent voyage, but this is just...different. You almost feel like you're not traveling, like the two of you are on a casual walk, even though your mother is just behind you, pretending to gather edible plants, as if she's not watching you both... _dammit._

It still feels casual. Friendly. More-than-friendly.

You started this whole thing so young. You were barely into puberty when you started having your dreams, started thinking about the hemospectrum and everything that was wrong with the system. You never ever thought about your quadrants because you didn't think that you needed them. You had your visions, your message. It had always been enough.

Till now.

You let your hand fall to your side, and you look at her again. She has both hands up to her throat, but she lets one of her hands fall to the same side. Your hands bump together, and you hook one finger around hers. You both physically relax.

Yes.

This feels _better._

 _(And somehow, you know that your mother is watching and gloating right now, and you don't give a fuck.)_

==>Be the Dolorosa

You sigh. _Oh thank Gog._


	7. Huntress: travel

==>Huntress: Travel

You had hoped you would find a home again, and now you have one. Wherever Signless and the Dolorosa are, there is your home. You sleep curled up contentedly between the two of them, your head lying on the huge paws of your pelt. 

You still have a difficult time talking, and you haven't said much of anything since Signless asked you your name. You try to employ more words in an effort to use your voice more and please your new...well. Whatever they are to you, they're important. You have managed to perfect “yes” and “no” and “please” and “thank you” but other words are difficult and you forget syntax and grammar. You get frustrated at not being able to communicate and huddle in your pelt. They know to leave you alone till you calm down. 

But slowly, slowly, your words come back to you, not perfect, but understandable, at least to them, the people* that matter to you. You don't have any desire to talk to anyone else, your written words are perfect, and that's what really matters, that you have his words on the paper and they'll stay where other people can read them, eventually. 

Sometimes, the Dolorosa will take you aside, and she will tend to you. Your hair is long and tangled but she threads her finger through it patiently as she combs through and detangles it. When she does this, you take the back of your hand and rub it against your cheek continuously. It reminds you of your lusus, and sometimes you cry. 

But it's not the Dolorosa who comforts you when you wake sniffling with nightmares of the culling drone, hovering large and black in your memory-dreams, or the horrorterrors whispering in your ear. It's Signless who pulls you close to him, pets your hair and murmurs “shoosh” into your ear. It's Signless who talks to you and makes you relax back into sleep. You're tangled up in his cloak nearly every evening when you wake up, with one of his arms curled around your shoulders. 

It occurs to you in that moment that there's something more than companionship going on here but you've never been given the schoolfeeding on quadrants or romance, you only know of them by close proximity to other trolls, only heard of them in passing. You do not know what one he fits with. 

You were much too young when your lusus was killed. There is much you do not know about the workings of the world. 

The next time the Dolorosa takes you aside, she tends to your finger where one claw has been torn off in the quick. You give her your antiseptic ointment and she delicately cleans and anoints and bandages it. You've tended your own fingers before, and you didn't need her to do so. But she does, anyway. 

“You,” she begins, and pauses. “You are not...you will not go away, will you?” Her face is unreadable, and her eyes are cast down to where she is still holding your hand. Her voice holds a kind of anxiety, a worry that you cannot read. 

“...will not go away.” You say it firmly. “Never want to leave.” It hasn't been very long, but you haven't felt as safe and as contented as you do right now. 

The Dolorosa lets out a sigh. “Good.” She makes a 'turn around' motion with her fingers so that she can fuss with your hair. You do so, and think in silence for a while. 

“M-mother?” You've never called anyone that before in your life. Her hands still in your hair, gentle a little. 

“Yes?” Her voice wavers softly. 

“I...will you tell me about the quadrants?” It's embarrassing, mostly because she will know why you're asking. She's seen you wake in Signless' arms, has seen you wrapped together with him in his cloak. But you do not want to misunderstand. 

She says, “All right,” and proceeds to tell you as she cards through your hair, plaiting it and loosing it over and over until she is done speaking and you are not at all sure that you know any more than before you asked. 

Once again, you have daymares, whimpering in your sleep, and once again, his arms are around you when you wake up, his face nestled in your hair. You still don't quite know what quadrant he belongs in—you're leaning towards pale or flushed—but you have a feeling he isn't really all that concerned about it either. 

Besides, when you look at him as he's sleeping, he has a soft smile on his face. 

When you go into villages, you find the most unobtrusive place to seat yourself while he speaks, and you work your magic with your words. You follow sometimes, writing at the same time, if he is talking while walking; sometimes people insist on following him for a little ways and he never turns down trolls with questions. 

This sometimes takes a toll. 

Most days, Signless sleeps fitfully, though when you are in his arms, he sleeps better. But sometimes, the visions come while sleeping, no matter what, and he wakes, gently unwraps his arms from around you, and stays wakeful, staring into the fire. If you wake as well, you gather your book and writing implements and ask him to describe what he sees. 

He doesn't look at you when he describes his visions, choosing instead to stare into the fire, as if his visions burn right in front of him. When he's done describing them, you close your book and sit with him. 

Today, it is nearly twilight, and he has been up most of the day. He looks tired and the dark shadows beneath his eyes seem so much deeper than before. You sit facing his side, then lean forward, crawling till your nose bumps his cheek, and you nuzzle him affectionately, making a soft, purring noise in your throat. You pity him, just so much. 

“Huntress, what the _fuck?_ ” he says, and his voice is gentler than his words. He's looking at you like you're crazy. 

You think you sort of are. 

You purr again and rub your forehead against his cheek. He sighs and you feel his shoulders slump, the knots of tension in between his shoulder blades loosening. You smile, the roundness of your cheek against his. He puts his arms around you and nestles his face into your hair, sighing. You stay like that till full night, when you must journey on. 

==>Be the Signless

The three of you journey on to the next town. You have your little finger linked with the Huntress' little finger, and you are lost in thought. You can still smell her from where she rubbed against you, smell her hair from where she's walking next to you, scanning the forests for game. You know as soon as she's seen or scented something, she'll be off like a shot, working quickly with her knives. She'll be back half an hour later, barely a drop of blood on her and everything clean and ready to cook. 

She was good. 

And even though she was good, and skilled, she was the most pitiable creature he'd ever met. 

Sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, she would stroke the back of her hand over her cheek, closing her eyes, trying to gain comfort. Or else she would bat her cheek with the paw of the pelt she wore, with the most lost expression on her face. It makes you want to go over and wrap her in his cloak, keep her safe. 

Oh, who the fuck are you kidding? You can't even keep _yourself_ safe, much less anyone else. 

Suddenly, the Huntress picks up her head, and her knives are out, and before you can say a word, she's gone into the forest after whatever the fuck is going to be your dinner later on. The Dolorosa nudges your shoulder. You stop watching after where the Huntress has gone, and proceed on. 

She'll catch up with you later. 

A couple hours later, she's found you both again, moving slowly, but with a slab of meat that she has a difficult time carrying. One of her arms is injured, and her blood drips down her arm. You hurry to help her, and you argue a little (“You're fucking _hurt_!” “Meat first, then hurt!”), and then you give up and help her skewer and hang the meat over a fire, and then she sits down hard and begins licking the huge wound down her forearm, whimpering a little, huddled into herself. 

You've never seen her injured before. You sit down beside her, and she growls at you. “With all the fucking ointments you make, you're going to _lick_ yourself clean?” 

She freezes mid-lick, traces of her own green-yellow blood on her tongue, her eyes wide and stricken. You move towards her, and take out one of those little jars—not the one for burns, the antiseptic one—and reach for her injured arm. “Come here, dummy,” you say, and your voice is gentle. Now that she is near you, she is letting herself tremble a little. “You must have gotten injuries before.” You put your cloak around her. 

She makes a tiny, squeaky sound as you begin to clean the wound, which is long and jagged and goes from her wrist nearly to her elbow. “Not furry much, no.” Her mouth trembled. “Not as b-bad.” 

“Oh.” He'd noticed other tiny scars besides the big one on her shoulder, but they were _tiny_...and this one would make a fucking awful one. The Dolorosa brings over some clean rags you use for bandages and you almost want to hand this job over to her. She's so much gentler than you are, you'll just screw this up, but _you_ want to do this for her. 

Like she did for you. Oh fucking hell, are you becoming _flushed_?

That's the last thing you need. The very last. You growl aloud to yourself. 

Her arm is still open and bleeding in front of you, and you open the ointment up and begin spreading it over the wound. She doesn't wince. It makes you wonder about when the culling drone had opened up her shoulder with it's scythe—you can't even imagine how she survived it. She couldn't have turned to lick her wounds. _How had she kept it clean_ , you think as you begin to wrap the wound tightly enough to close the jagged ends of her skin together. You hear a tiny sound from her and you shoosh her softly. 

Your blood-pusher, at the moment, is full of the deepest red pity for her. You've got it bad and you are done for. 

You can't help but imagine when she was a little girl, muffling her sounds of pain till she could fall asleep again, trembling with reaction when she lost a little too much blood. You think of how hard it must have been, growing up with no one, losing her language, living isolated and lonely from everyone and living in fear. You've lived with fear, too, but not like her. You've never faced down the culling drone, alone and utterly dwarfed by the enormity of the thing. You've never been without a caretaker, and you've never been alone, not really. 

She's pale and her eyes are half-lidded when you are done with her arm, and she's swaying a little. “Whoa, fuck, hey,” you say, reaching out to catch her when she falls over. 

“Too meowch blood,” she murmurs in a tiny, trembling voice. “Cold.” 

You wrap your cloak tighter around her and hold her close. “Shooosh. You're okay, I'm here.” Your chest hurts, your eyes hurt. She's so damn _pitiful._ You rock her gently, like your mother used to do with you when you were a tiny wriggler, just learning to use your arms to cling. Her hair is soft and tangled against your hand. She lays her head against your chest and rubs her cheek against you with a soft little sound, like a purr. 

And then her head grows heavy upon your chest and even though she's in a weird and awkward position for sleep, she's most definitely asleep. 

The Dolorosa comes to sit beside you. “Flushed?” she asks, softly. 

You almost nod. Almost, because you've read books, you've seen movies (sometimes, when you can get to a late-night showing. It's a guilty pleasure). You're sure that redrom isn't precisely like this. You frown, because you hate when things don't make sense. You should be flushed for her, in the very reddest way imaginable. And sometimes, you are. 

But sometimes you feel darker, sometimes paler, and you just don't _get_ that. You never want to hurt her but you sometimes just...admire her. You feel awe, and admiration and that's not _quite_ what matespritship is. And it isn't quite blackrom because _you don't hate her._

But it isn't _all_ pity, and that's what you don't get. 

When you speak, your voice is small and you sound very young. “I don't know.” 

***

The next evening, the Huntress is fine, having slept and eaten. She's a little shaky on her feet at first, but that doesn't last long. Eventually, she's back scanning the forests again. But you've had meat, so she's gathering edible plants instead, allowing her arm to heal. It's a good thing she's decided not to hunt today, because she'll insist on transcribing your sermon tonight when you speak. 

The village you speak at today seems to be inhabited mostly by mid-blooded trolls, but you can see the large hives of the higher blooded trolls as well, so you must be careful. Your sermon today is a quiet sort of discussion in the town square, seated in front of the fountain so that people can see and hear you without you having to raise your voice too much. It's a good discussion, and the Huntress sits off to one side, taking note of the conversations you have with people. 

It is cut short, unfortunately, by the arrival of some rather big, very irritated blue-bloods who quite pointedly make you aware that your ideas are not welcome, and by extension, neither are you. You practice what you preach and leave peaceably before the blue-bloods change their minds about killing you all. 

You are sitting around the fire later on, cooking. The Huntress is still a little under the weather from her injury, and she is lying with her head in the Dolorosa's lap. The Dolorosa is playing with her hair and the Huntress is almost purring. 

Suddenly, she picks up her head and rolls into a crouch, every muscle poised. _God, can she stop the purr-beast act for five fucking minutes?_ you think irritably...

==>Be the Huntress

You see a glint in the forest. You see the glint, and now you're smelling a smell. You do not know what it is but you will find out, and you take off into the jungle towards it. The jungle is cool still, day has not yet fallen and the sounds of the jungle are familiar to your ears. There is a small, huddled figure hiding behind a tree. You set your haunches and then pounce. 

The troll you saw a glimmer of from a distance covers his head in reaction to your sudden pounce as you land on him, your hands pressing his thin shoulders to the ground. You growl softly, a warning: _stay still._ The troll freezes, you can smell _yellow yellow yellow_ and his eyes are covered by battered glasses. You sniff at him, studying him, kneeling over him. Twin horns. You paw off his glasses. His eyes are two different colors, and you tilt your head at him. And then you see the slave collar around his neck. 

Your face contorts in sorrow and you sniff at him again, make a small, sad sound. 

“Pleathe let me up,” he whispers, and you nod, letting him sit up. The collar has rubbed his skin raw around the slave collar, and you can see the broken links of chain still attached to it. You make another sound, and survey him again. There are scrapes on his skin and tears in his clothes, and his nose has bled, and there are tracks of tears (or blood) on his cheeks. His wrists have slave bracelets that have cut into his skin, crusted yellow around the injuries. 

“You. Why here?” Your voice is gentle because you can tell that he hasn't been treated well. You pet his shoulder gently. 

“The Thignleth.” 

“You listen today?” 

“From my window. I need to be near him. I've _theen_ it.” His voice is faint, and he is weak. Even you, tiny as you are, could take him out with a push and a single pass of your knife. You look into his eyes for a long moment, a long moment where he does not take his eyes from yours. Something drags up from your hazy past memories, something you overheard: _Yellow blooded trolls often are psychic._

You nod. “Come.” You help him up, and slip his glasses back on his face. He's shaky; weak on his feet, and you hold your hands out as if you could stabilize him, even though he's well over a foot taller than you, taller than Signless, even. You slip your hand into his and lead him back to camp. 

==>Be Signless

Oh, no. _Fuck_ no. “Oh, what is this fuckery??” 


	8. The Psiioniic

==>Huntress: Abscond

You will, but before you do, you figure out how to take off the slave chains from Psiioniic's neck and wrists. You are good with your knife and you know how to re-sharpen it, so you insert the blade into the tiny weld marks that you find, and pry carefully as Signless (he reluctantly agrees to help after you glare at him) holds the other troll's arms, then his shoulders, still. The psionic troll muffles a whimper as the collar and bracelets come off, taking some of his flesh with it. He almost faints, but a sudden flash of red and blue energy keeps him up for a moment or two—the collar, in addition to being humiliating, suppressed many of his psionic abilities—before you and the Dolorosa catch him between the two of you. You wash and put antiseptic on his wounds very carefully and tend to them while the Signless hands you bandages to wrap gently around his injuries. The Dolorosa goes about getting some food together and a blanket to wrap around him. His red-and-blue eyes are wide, his expression blank as you take care of him. His long, elegant fingers tear the bread the Dolorosa handed him into tiny pieces, pushing them into his mouth, chasing the bits with water. The Dolorosa exhorts him to eat slowly, so as not to make himself ill. When he begins to shiver, you help him to get nearer to the fire. 

After he has eaten, and once Signless has him engaged in conversation, you take your whetstone and leave to give them privacy. The stone and knife will make too much noise as you sharpen it, and whatever will happen in this conversation, you know it will be important, somehow. 

And you know, somehow, that you shouldn't be there to hear it. 

==>Be the Dolorosa

You think the Psiioniic might be a bit imbalanced, but how could you blame him for being so? Kept as a plaything of high-blooded trolls, simply a tool and nothing more! A prophet asked to predict stupid things, asked for the odds on a gamble, asked to predict _weather_ , for goodness' sake. And in the meantime, starved and abused, with little contact with other trolls. He must have been desperate for escape. 

At first the conversation between them was stilted, Signless abrupt and often rude as he so often is, Psiioniic hesitant and a little nervous. But then, in the blink of an eye, they began really _talking_ , almost finishing each others' sentences. Comparing visions. Visions that slot together, neatly, like a puzzle, and you see the completeness in Signless' expression, the thing he searches for in the fires finally, finally _found._

They talk for quite some time before the Signless' eyes go to the Huntress' usual spot by the fire. She is not back yet, and he looks at you wordlessly, absently rubbing at his chest. He doesn't know he's doing it. You get up to go and find her. 

She hasn't gone far. Having finished sharpening her knife, she is perched on a rock overhanging the river, watching the play of the twin moons in the dark water. She has not changed much, and yet she has changed entirely from the timid little troll who took pity on Signless' burned arm. She holds her head up, now. She looks other trolls in the eye. She has never remembered her wriggling-name, but Huntress fits her so well, you wonder if she'd ever answer to that other name if she heard it. 

What doesn't fit her are her clothes. How had you not noticed before? Her clothes are just about threadbare. Her fang-beast skin covers most of her body, of course, and keeps her warm. But she needs clothing. She needs something lovely and practical. 

She turns to see you. She's probably known you were standing there since you started out from the fire. “He is looking for you.” 

The Huntress smiles. “Are they speaking?” 

“Still, yes. I think they will until one or the other of them collapses from exhaustion. But still...he is looking for you.” 

She leaps easily down from her perch, graceful as a cat, grinning. “I come.” She slips her hand into yours. She's sweet, sometimes, and she leans her head against your shoulder. “They needed together.” 

“ _To be_ together,” you correct gently. She often forgets the verb 'to be'. 

“To be together,” she repeats carefully. “Needs someone hear visions. More than me and you.” 

You don't bother to correct her grammar this time. “I think you are right about that. They are talking rather animatedly about everything.” 

She smiles again. “Maybe not go back yet. Let talk more.” 

Somehow, you expected the Huntress to be far more possessive. “Let me measure you, then. I need to make clothes for you.” 

The Huntress tilted her head to the side. “But have clothes,” she said, gesturing to herself. 

“Something that isn't _torn_ , dear.” You have so many _ideas_... you've missed making clothes. 

“Oh. Okay, then.” 

She lets you measure her, then, with a bit of string, lets you arrange her limbs to get the proper measurements and turn her to look at her posture. You write everything down and make adjustments, and you know precisely what you are going to do for her. 

She doesn't understand what you are doing. Her current clothes are ones she's made herself, and you strongly suspect that she wrapped the hides around her body and sewed them in place to fit. 

You like her. She's good for Signless. And she's good for you, too. 

You wonder how things will change with another troll in the group. 

==>Be Signless

The Psiioniic has been asleep for a while now. He's pale as fuck, as if he hasn't seen the outside, day or night, for a fucking long time, and nothing but skin and bones. The flesh over his knuckles is raw, and his claws are blunted. He has a long face with high, elegant cheekbones. When he was talking, his hands made gestures that made things clearer in your mind. You wonder idly how the Huntress will transcribe that sort of thing in her book. 

Poor bastard is exhausted. He was mid-sentence when he suddenly looked as if he was going to faceplant right into the fucking fire, so you helped him lie down and covered him over with one of the sleeping pelts. 

You hope like fuck no one is coming after him. You want to live a little while longer. Discussing your complementary visions was eye-opening to say the least, and you kind of wish Huntress was taking notes. 

But then, you're glad she wasn't, you're glad Dolorosa wasn't, because this much is clear to you now: You are going to die for this cause. You are going to die and they're coming with you: Dolorosa, Huntress, and now this guy. It won't be right away. You'll have time. Time to speak, time to do whatever good works that you feel compelled to do. Time to travel, to spread the word. Time to be sure that if they kill you, they'll have something to kill you _for_. Time. 

But not enough. Not _nearly_ enough. It's bad enough that you'll never see the culmination of your vision. But the idea of all of them following you down to ruin leaves a taste like bitter herbs in your mouth. 

You are afraid, but you cannot let that show. 

You hear a rustling and the two female trolls are coming back from wherever the fuck they absconded off to, and you are relieved. You get up and go over to them and loop one arm around each of them, holding them tightly. The Dolorosa has always understood you, and nestles your forehead into the curve of her shoulder, wrapping her arms around you, but the Huntress tenses up momentarily before shyly wrapping an arm around your waist as well. 

After a few moments, you let them go. The Dolorosa sets about making things ready for sleep, and the Huntress makes to go to help, but you have caught her hand, and you tug her over by the fire to sit with you. She looks at you, questioning with her eyes, but settles beside you with her head on your shoulder anyway. You put your arm and your cloak around her. 

“You sad.” She's looking over at you, her large eyes showing only concern for you. 

“A little.” 

She frowns. “Talk not go good?”

You hold her closer, and try to smile for her. “It went fine.” You don't want to talk about that. All you're thinking about is the day it will all end. You know you shouldn't because in the end, it isn't really about you, it's about Alternia, about your race and how it could all be _better._ But you have just started. You've only just found the Psiioniic. You've barely known the Huntress for three perigees and you can't imagine ever being without her, even if she pisses you off sometimes. What quadrant she fits in doesn't matter, because you want her, and you think she wants you back. 

And whatever time there is, it will _never be enough._

She's looking at you now, and there's a little fear in her eyes. You take the hand that isn't wrapped around her shoulders and place it against her cheek. She closes her eyes and tilts her head into your hand and the feeling hurts, it hurts your blood-pusher to feel her like that. How much she trusts you. “It's going to be all right,” you murmur. 

She blinks her eyes at you slowly, and you don't think she believes you, but she agrees with you anyway. “Purrfectly all right.” 

Of course, a cat pun. You roll your eyes. “You drive me fucking crazy.” It comes out softer and more shaky than you intended. 

She grins at you. “Need me drive you crazy.” She places a hand on your face, strokes her thumb over your cheek. 

It occurs to you then that your face is rather close to hers. You move your thumb to smooth over her lips and she shudders all over. The pleasure of touching her like that makes your blood-pusher speed up a little. 

Her eyes widen at her own reaction and she looks up at you, eyes wide and dark. You trace her eyebrows, her cheekbones, run your fingers over her jawline to her little pointed chin. You feel her hand slide up into your hair, and you realize that she's practically in your lap, pressed as close as possible to you. 

Before you can convince yourself to let the moment pass, you close the short distance between you and press your lips to hers. It takes a moment before she kisses back, melting warm into your embrace. She makes a soft purring sound and for once, the cat-traits don't annoy you. When you pause for breath, she doesn't pull away, but stays and pulls you back towards herself, her lips slightly parted for you. 

You give yourself over to her, to this feeling. Eventually, though, you pull back and smooth her hair from her face. “We should sleep,” you say. Your voice is a little shaky. And she's actively trembling in your arms. “Are you all right?” 

She nods, flushed a delicate green, and her smile is a fragile, shaking thing. You lie down with her in your arms and she turns and snuggles in. You look down and she has her eyes closed with a small smile on her face, and she's pressed flush against you. 

The Huntress looks happy and peaceful, and she's heavy against you. You stroke your hand through her tangled hair that never lies straight for an entire day, and she makes that soft sound again. One side of your mouth lifts and you close your eyes. 

Right now, everything is all right. 


	9. In Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes take a road trip. Featuring several instances of cursing, eight instances of the word 'fuck', and one flip-off.

Chapter 9: In Sickness

==>Be the Huntress 

You move on the next night, keeping to the deeper parts of the forest and moving as quickly as you can, in case Psiioniic's 'owners' come after him. Your arm is killing you and you are exhausted. The Psiioniic himself is trying very hard to keep up but ends up passing out halfway through the night. Between the three of you, you manage to keep up the pace, but it's very hard, and all three of you are exhausted by dayfall. 

“Thorry,” Psiioniic says, after you'd stopped and revived him in order to make him eat. “I don't mean to be a burden.” His obvious depression showed in the slump of his shoulders, his bowed head. You nudge him slightly before tending to your weapons. 

“Shut up, bulge muncher,” Signless says, obvious affection in his voice, “we all have fucking bad days.” He slung an arm around him and made him sit up straight, gently bullying him into a better posture. 

You smile slightly and go on sharpening your knives before the evening's hunt. Even though you don't feel well and your body aches, food was still needed and this is the job you've taken upon yourself. 

“I have been thinking,” the Dolorosa says, standing in front of the fire, “that we should go home, Signless. At least for the dim season. It will be more difficult to travel while it is more light, and we have two injured members of our party.” 

You protest indignantly because oh fuck no, you are not going to be a reason to stop! “I _fine!_ Can still hunt.” You are not going to be a hindrance to anyone! 

“You are becoming ill,” the Dolorosa says to you bluntly, “And Psiioniic is not in any better state than you are, certainly. Going into the desert during the dim season will be our best chance of gaining some time to rest. And, Signless...you need this. Do not lie to yourself. Things are changing rapidly and soon you will not have the chance.” 

You press your lips together and say nothing. You know she's right but you've never depended on anyone's care before, and you feel weak for needing the rest, for wanting to agree so easily. 

The Psiioniic looks up and over to Signless. “Thee'th right, you know. We talked about it.” 

You prick up your ears. Now you are wondering precisely _what_ they had talked about. The Signless purses his lips in a frown and sighs with a heaviness that you recognize. 

Guilt. 

You want to pounce him and demand that he tell you. But you won't tear it out of him here or now, but you look questioningly at him. He looks at you, then looks away, biting his lip. He wants to tell you. 

It is good. You will wait until he is ready. 

The next time he looks up, you smile slightly and nod at him. The relief on his face is good to see. 

==>Be the Psiioniic

You watch the silent interplay between Huntress and Signless. You can tell that there is something deep between them, you'd seen them sleeping contentedly in each other's arms just that morning. You wonder how long they've been together. You'd only seen such affection in long term matesprits or even moirails. 

Signless looks up at his... _mother_ , you think he called her at some point the previous night. “You're right, like you _always_ fucking are.” Suddenly, he looks much older to you. And much younger, at the same time. 

“It's not a crime to admit to needing a rest,” she says, going up to him. “Besides...it's almost 12th Perigees' Eve. Won't it be nice to be at rest and be together for it? And who knows how long it's been since Huntress has seen a Perigees' behemoth leaving...” She's smiling as she says that and it makes Signless' face soften, too. 

“Fuck yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, let's go home.” He turns to you. “Hey fuckass. Think you can deal with a rest in the desert?” 

“Never been there. Ith it very far to travel?” It's what you've heard, anyway. 

“Yeth it ith.” He sneers at you, but you know, somehow, that he doesn't mean any harm. So you flip him off. It's amazing how you do this like old friends after knowing each other just a little over a day. 

He snorts and then drops his tone a little. “You know, if you need help walking...I think I'm strong enough to carry your skinny ass.” 

“Ath long ath you carry me like a printheth.” He bats his eyes. 

The Huntress giggles, and Signless just rolls his eyes. “Oh, fuck you.” There's no heat behind the insult. 

_Yeah,_ you think. _This is right where I should be._

==>Be the Dolorosa

Well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now you are not so sure. 

You and Signless are the only two uninjured trolls in your party, and it's beginning to have a definite effect on your travel time, not to mention you worry about losing them. You know they were ill but you hadn't realized how much. 

Huntress says nothing about how much pain she's in, but you already know because sometimes she's pale and sometimes her cheeks are a bit too green, and you know that despite the antiseptic, something not-healthy had gotten into her bloodstream when she got injured. Every so often, she stumbles, and she never, _ever_ stumbles. 

But it's Psiioniic that you worry most about, because he's barely strong enough to walk. Signless is carrying the taller troll on his back with a little more ease than he should be experiencing. He keeps up a steady banter with the other, weaker troll, to keep Psiioniic awake. 

“Say, if you're psychic, shouldn't you know when I'm going to start giving you shit?” You think it is a good thing that the other troll can't see the worry on Signless' face. 

“Fuck you, nooksniffer,” Psiioniic murmured weakly, but there was a slight grin on his face. 

The Dolorosa reflected that the banter was also a good way to make sure the Psiioniic was _alive._

“And ruin our beautiful relationship by rushing into physical intimacy? You wound me, sir.” 

“Oh my god, theriouthly...” He laughed, which was cut off by a racking spasm of coughing. 

“Shit, man, don't die on me.” Signless' tone was flippant, but his words were not. 

Huntress skipped over, a little slowly, and not with her usual grace. She reached up and patted Psiioniic's arm, grinning up at him. “I would be _purry_ glad you not die, Psiioniic. He'd be _furrious_.” 

“Fucking cat puns,” Signless grumbled. 

Huntress purred. “Know you love it.” 

Signless took a swipe at her, which she ducked easily, especially since he wasn't really aiming to hit her. He growled harmlessly at her and adjusted Psiioniic's weight on his back. “Gog, why do I put up with the two of you?” 

“Because,” Huntress said, stretching up to get right in Signless' ear on wobbly feet, “we're _puuuurrrrrrfect_ for each other!” 

Psiioniic is laughing, then, laughing and coughing and, “Oh hell—no way—I'm dying. Thith ith too prithleth...” 

And Signless just growls at her and she leans over to kiss his cheek before stumbling down to walk normally beside him, and despite her sickly pallor, she's smiling widely. You hurry over to put your arms around her, because the stumbling really hasn't stopped. She's feverish. This is not good. But you smile weakly at her. 

You will be glad when you all are back at your hive. 


	10. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Heroes go home for the holidays. Warning: there's a bit of yucky in this chapter regarding Huntress' arm injury, so be warned.

==>Dolorosa: return home

You have not been back here in a perigee, and it looks it. The shade awnings desperately need repair. But there's a roof, it's still standing, and the nearby village (no one over a green blood here, you checked before you ever settled here with Signless) will provide you with the things you need to care for your charges. 

The Huntress looks pale and drawn, but she helps you and Signless get the Psiioniic into a recuperacoon and add fresh sopor slime. You only have two, and you'll have to take turns sleeping in them. Signless looks pointedly at the Huntress when the Psiioniic is settled in. You look at her then, and you lead her to the other respiteblock.

She looks at the recuperacoon as if it were something she has never seen before, and shakes her head. “No, you.” She bites her lip and looks away. 

You look at her. “You need rest. You are ill.” She has grown more so during your journey, tired and sickly. 

Signless growls. “Don't be an idiot,” he says to her. “It's just a fucking recuperacoon and you need to rest and heal.” 

You sigh and kiss his cheek. “Try to persuade her, Signless. I'm going to head into the village to get supplies before it gets too much later.” 

==>Be the Signless

Once the Dolorosa leaves, you approach the Huntress. As always, you approach her from the side where she can see you. (You approached her from behind once, and she nearly gutted you.)

She looks over at you. “Don't make me...” Her eyes are huge and the pupils are blown wide. You've never seen her more scared. You gently remove the pelt that she always wears, and you notice that she looks relieved with the absence of the weight. She is trembling. 

“What are you scared of?” 

She growls. “ _Not_ scared!” 

“Hoofbeast excrement.” You fold your arms over your chest. “Tell me.” 

She looks down at her feet and whines pitifully. The sound pulls at you. 

You reach out and slip your hand behind her neck to pull her close. “What is it?” 

She steps closer with her hands clasped at her throat, smashing her face against your chest. She's pulling at your blood-pusher again, and you are just flooded with pity. “What is it?” you ask again, and your voice is softer than anyone else would ever hear it. 

“Last time, lusus died. Killed. Was sleeping and...” she clutches her fingers into your shirt. “Couldn't move...” 

It doesn't take you long to figure out what had happened and why she didn't want to go into the 'coon. 

“I'll be right here, the whole time,” you murmur into her hair. She has to sleep, and she needs the recuperacoon more than anyone else in their party, as far as you are concerned. “I'm not going to let anything happen to any of us.” Guilt lances through your chest, because eventually things _will_ happen. But they're not going to happen _today_ , and you won't let them. Today, she will be safe, because you will make sure of it. 

She sniffles and you drop a kiss into her hair, between her horns. And then she's openly sobbing, something she just doesn't _do_ , and never with you, and you hold her close. 

It's then that you realize that she's unusually warm. _Very_ unusually warm. “Shit,” you mutter and pick her up. She's far smaller than Psiioniic but you're still surprised at how solid she is. She holds on to you, wraps her arms around your neck and you carry her somewhere that you can sit her down. You kneel at her feet and take off her boots—they are falling apart, like the rest of her clothing. You head off to the other room briefly, rummage around in a drawer, and find one of your old sleep shirts. It doesn't fit you anymore but it's going to be huge on her anyway. 

“Okay,” you murmur. You wipe off her tears with the heel of your hand, and you begin unlacing her clothing. “Just going to get you into something to sleep in, something cooler, it's going to be all right and I'm not going to leave you.” 

“Sssorry,” she murmurs, between hiccuping sobs. “Shouldn't've let you go for the kill. Shouldn't've....” You can tell that something is not good, something is just _not fucking right_ about this. You wish your mother were back already. You hurry and get the clothes off of her and your old shirt on her and yeah, she's swimming in it, but you don't have time to appreciate how motherfucking _cute_ it is because she really is burning up. 

“Shit,” you mutter, your voice breaking embarrassingly. _“Shit.”_ Her head is lolling over to the side. “Shit!” You lay her down on the floor, pulling her arm over and yanking the bandage off. Her arm is flushed green, threads of green lancing off the long, angry-looking wound on her arm. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck..._ ” 

You know what you have to do, you know because this happened to you once, had scraped your arm and had bandaged it yourself, and by the time Mother had found out about it, you had fainted. You woke to excruciating pain because she'd had to reopen the wound. (Past you was a fucking _imbecile._ )

Since that time, you've always kept your sickles sharp and clean. One never knows. And you don't trust the Huntress' knives. You shuck off your cloak and draw one of your sickles. You're good with them. 

You wish the Dolorosa was here. You catch your lower lip in your teeth, take a breath, and cut, reopening the wound. The Huntress makes a sharp, strangled sound that makes you want to scream with her, and you lean down so she can clutch onto you. “Shooosh,” you murmur shakily. “Shoosh, I'm sorry.” There's shit coming out of the wound you barely want to look at, but you do, and you have to press down to get whatever poison is still in her system out. She cries out again in pain and you see the source of it: a piece of thorn or wood embedded under her skin. It's as long as one of the claws on her pelt, and it had stuck in under the skin, into the muscle. It's slippery when you try to grasp it, and you're having difficulty getting a hold. The Huntress is crying, she's too weak to fight you off, and it's agonizing to watch her.

“Heavens! What's going on here?” The Dolorosa's voice echoes down the corridor. 

“Mom, get in here and help me!” _Oh thank gog, thank gog_ , you chant silently, and you are now aware that you are crying, too. 

She comes in and you babble something but she just paps your face and shooshes you quickly. She can see what's going on and reaches in with deft, dry fingers to pull out the bit of debris while you hold down the Huntress, who is nearly mad with pain and fever. You hold her as your mother takes the medicine she bought at the village and scrubs out the wound. The smell of the medicine, harsh and artificial, stings your nose and eyes. Now it's just blood coming out of her, her own green-with-a-little-yellow blood, clean and healing. 

Huntress is too exhausted to fight or cry anymore, and you give her little sips of water, you spoon thin soup into her mouth. Her fever has broken, and she's awake and looking at you with weary, half-lidded eyes. 

“Darling.” The Dolorosa lays her hand on your shoulder. “You need to rest. I've built a large pile so you can stay with her. If you like.” 

You frown. “Psiioniic...”

“He's still asleep, even with all the yelling.” She tousles your hair, like she used to do when you were a little kid, and looks at you fondly. “Go to sleep. You really need the 'coon, but the pile will work for now, while her arm heals.” 

You nod and carry the half-awake Huntress over to the pile, made of whatever the Dolorosa could find around the hive. She's so weak that it scares you. You see the precise moment that she falls asleep when you lie beside her and put your arm around her belly, and you watch her eyes close, a soft sigh escaping her as she goes limp. You close your eyes and you are asleep before your next breath. 


	11. Recover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep is good for the soul. Some nice Huntress and Psiioniic bonding time!

==>Huntress: Wake Up

You jerk out of sleep abruptly in the middle of the day, wincing and squeezing your eyes shut again against the light.

“Jeeth, it'th about time you woke up.” The voice is high and nasal. At first, you don't recognize the voice, and you leap into a crouch...then fall on your face. 

“Whoa, eathy there.” He drops down and helps you to sit back up on your pile. Your arm still aches but nowhere near the blinding pain it had been before, and you no longer feel sick. You are hungry. “You've been athleep for two dayth.” 

No wonder you're so weak. It's the worst you've been since you ran away from the culling drone. You look over at the Psiioniic. “Where Signless?” 

He gestures to the recuperacoon with his head. “Collapthed latht night.” Only Signless' arm, is hanging out of the 'coon. You go over and peer into the recuperacoon, a little less nervous about it now that you are not delirious and in pain. He's sleeping peacefully, his bare chest rising and falling, and you watch it for a while, his hand so large and strong but so vulnerable in sleep on the outside of the 'coon...

You want to take care of him in every way possible. You slip your fingers into the palm of his hand. You're aware that Psiioniic is watching you curiously, wondering about you, wondering about you and him. You are wondering the same thing. 

You sigh. “Dolorosa?” 

“Thewing,” he said. “Athked me to get you food when you woke up.” He stands up and holds a hand out to you. You grab it, teetering on your feet, in an unfamiliar shirt that smells, faintly like Signless. He leads you to the food preparation block and you sit down awkwardly. 

Now that you're a little more awake, you notice that the Psiioniic is moving easier. “You better.” 

“Yeah...jutht a little.” He looks over and smiles shyly. “Thankth for your help.” 

You smile back. “You need us. We need you.” 

He brings over a bowl of porridge and you set to eating immediately. You were hungry but you hadn't realized how much till you'd actually started eating again. You blush when you realize you've eaten the entire bowl in a impolitely short time. 

Psiioniic just grins at you. “Welcome back to the world of the living.” 

==>Be the Psiioniic

You spend more time with the Huntress, because Signless is far more exhausted than he's let on, and the Dolorosa is happily puttering around her hive, taking care of all of you, fixing and making clothing, feeding all of you. She looks happy and much less tired. You also notice that she is awake during the day far more than any of the rest of you. It's comforting, in a way. Almost as if you still had your lusus watching over you. 

Huntress is a strange troll. Her intelligence is considerable, though she has great difficulty with verbal communication. Her situation was explained to you by the Dolorosa, and at first, you weren't quite sure how you would deal with her. But she is greatly skilled at nonverbal communications, and she soon undertakes to teach you how to make medicine. She speaks in near-wriggler-talk, less than the level of communication she'd mastered when she learned to make the medicines from her lusus and from the books she'd read. 

“Take and put, take and put,” she says, pointing to an ingredient. You translate in your head: _Two parts to five parts water._ “Then heat to bubbles, sixty blood-pusher pulses.” _Boil for sixty seconds._ “Then put this three times.” 

You do precisely as she says, and she watches over you carefully, correcting you with a gesture if you get it wrong. In return, you tell her the names of the plants she uses, plants she either doesn't remember or never learned the names of, and she repeats them after you gratefully. She watches the boil on the potion and points at the consistency, how the vegetable components have broken down, how the certain minerals she'd sought out have blended with the vegetation in the heat. She pulls the pot off the heat and gives you a pestle. “Mush mush. Not crushing, gentle.” She puts her hand over yours to show you how to do that. She has tiny hands. She's actually one of the smallest adult trolls you've ever seen. 

“Like thith?” It has been a long time since you've been taught _anything_ and you are enjoying being taught. Despite her communication difficulties, she is a good teacher. And despite her rough appearance and manner, she is compassionate and kind, as well. 

She watches you for a while, nodding, then tells you to stop and shows you the consistency of it. “Done.” She shows you the hollowed out nut shell, only as big around as the palm of her hand, that she stored the ointments in. She'd showed you just the other day how she scraped the insides till there were only perfect smooth sides. You'd watched her well-practiced movements; you could tell that she'd done this hundreds of times. 

Carefully, she ladles in the ointment to cool and solidify. She's worrying her lower lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed, and so you wait for her to collect her thoughts enough to speak what is on her mind. It's interesting how quickly you've learned to read her in so short a time. 

“Psiioniic. You speak with Signless, long talks.” She closes up the nut shell, binding it well with animal hide thongs. “It trouble him. I see in eyes.” 

“I know,” you say. You can tell she's concerned over him. You wrap your arms around yourself, a bundle of skinny arms and skinny legs. “I see visions. They go with his.” 

“Not good or would not trouble.” She sighed. “You see death.” 

“I'm sorry,” you say softly. 

She shrugs. “Everybody dies. Still go on living for now.” She extends a finger and draws in the sand, a swirling, interconnected doodle, like tadpoles, or the claws of a crab, swirling around each other. It looks familiar. 

You begin to wonder if she is a visionary as well. 

“Have you read book?” she asks you shyly. 

“No.” She must be referring to the book Signless told you about, the reason why she joined your band in the first place. “He liketh to athk your permithion firtht.” 

She smiles softly, and reaches into her satchel, bringing it out. “You should read.” She places it on the ground in front of you. 

You extend a skinny arm to touch the cover. “I will.” You ponder saying something else for a few moments. Something that you've gleaned from his visions, something that was confirmed by their behavior with each other. “Don't wait any more. If you...have a confethion for Thignleth. Don't wait much longer. Okay?” 

She holds herself still, and you can see her cheeks turn faintly green as she pauses. “'Kay,” she says simply, and then she is gone. 

  
  


==>Psiioniic: finish reading

You don't know what you were expecting, but you weren't expecting anything like what you just read. Her writing style is simple and picturesque, and her words make the picture of the Signless come across loud and clear and painful in your mind. You suspect that she knows some of the same things you do about the future, but doesn't quite have the right vocabulary to express it. 

The Dolorosa, when she tends to the various healing wounds on your person, talks to you about them both in the very fondest terms. She's raised the Signless from a grub, something you can't even imagine another troll doing, really. But she seems so happy, so maybe there's something to it.

She's a good moirail, though you don't think she sees it that way. She tends to you when you get upset and she soothes you when you wake screaming from your visions. And she waits, patiently, for Signless to awaken. 

==>Dolorosa: tend to your charges

You've never been busier. Or happier, really. You enjoy taking care of these three young trolls. They need you so much, and you dearly love to be needed, to be busy with taking care of things. It's what made you such a good attendant for the Mother Grub. And also what made you leave her service to care for the Signless. 

He just needed her so much more! And he had no one, whereas there were other jade-blooded trolls to care for her. Despite anything that happens, you don't, can't, and won't regret that. 

You go into the room where Signless' recuperacoon is. He's been asleep for two days, only waking briefly to eat. He barely sleeps when you're traveling, and you knew he needed it. But now it's time for him to wake up. 

You peer inside, and yes, he's still asleep, though not as deeply as yesterday; he cannot stay asleep any longer. You reach in and place a hand on his slimy shoulder. “Darling, wake up,” you say softly. 

“Nnrgh,” he says eloquently. You smile. He's so grumpy first thing in the evening. You find it endearing, mostly because he would never hurt any of you. He _could_ , but he wouldn't. 

“Signless, you should get up, it's been two days. I know you are still wanting to sleep but it would not be good for you.” 

“Gnugh...” He picks up his head and blinks at you, and you help him out of the 'coon. It startles you, sometimes, when he's naked and vulnerable like this, to see how tall he's grown, how strong and husky a young man he is. You lead him into the ablution block. Generally, he would do this for himself, but he's been sleeping for a while and you would really not like to have him take a header into the wall. 

You shove him into the ablution chamber, and turn on the water: cold first, then hot. He squawks wordlessly at the cold, and then sighs when the water turns warm, and you leave him there to wash and dress. 

You go back to your workroom, where the clothing you are making for Huntress is nearly finished, but you are also working on repairing the Psiioniic's worn, but admittedly well-made, clothing. Today, it's his shirt, which has split down the seams, the thread much weaker than the fabric. It makes you feel good to repair clothing. Sewing has always relaxed you. You intend to do a lot of it while you are here. 

You hear the ablution chamber switch off, and then he's in the doorway, looking a little sleepy but at least he's awake. He sighs and comes over to you, kneeling at your feet and placing his head against your leg. You don't even mind that his hair is still slightly damp. You lay aside what you are working on and stroke his head. 

“Sorry I was asleep so long. How are they?” 

“Psiioniic is doing very well. After his wounds healed a little more, he started gaining strength. I am a little concerned about the mood swings, however. He and the Huntress are getting along nicely. She's doing very well. Now that the infection has cleared, she's healing. They both miss you. Sometimes, she stared into the 'coon while you were asleep.” 

He sighs. “I'm glad they're doing better.” 

He isn't even feigning the fact that he's troubled, prompting you to ask, “What is it, dearest?” Despite the newcomers, despite everything, he's still your favorite, he's your dear little one, though you'd _never_ call him that now.

“I...I don't want them to get hurt.” You feel his face contort under your hand. “I just want them to be safe. And they won't be. Not with me.” 

You lean over and kiss his head. “None of us are safe, Signless. I could have dismissed your ideas, your visions. But instead, I encouraged them, I listened to you and believed you. I would say we are equally at fault.” You listened to that first conversation that night. You know what they were talking about. 

You have long suspected that painful death is on the eventual horizon for all of you. You have made peace with this. When you became a caretaker for the Mother Grub, you knew that your life was forfeit anyway, subject to be taken in either defense or upon a whim. 

“You cannot send them away now, at any rate. Neither of them have anywhere else to go.” You keep your voice soothing, keep threading your fingers through his still-damp hair and trailing your hand over his shoulders in long, smooth strokes. “They pity you, Signless. They won't leave.” 

“That's what I am afraid of,” he whispered. 

You sigh, and quote your favorite war-poet: “'Dance today, for tomorrow, you may not have legs.'” You pat him. “And speaking of dancing, the village festival is tomorrow.” 

He makes a sound, reluctant. It's a big show, of course. He loves the festival. 

“We'll all go, of course,” you say in that tone that will brook no argument. “I am sure that Huntress has never before danced, and it would be sweet if you danced with her.” 

“Gog, you're always meddling.” 

You chuckle. “And you worry too much. Now. Get up and get some breakfast, dear, and go to see your followers, for they have missed you.” 

He does as you ask, getting up and placing a hand on your shoulder before going in search of food. 


	12. 12th Perigees' Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Huntress becomes a fashion plate, and Signless teaches her to dance, featuring once incidence of pouncing, a dancing scene, and several flushed kisses.

==>Huntress: strife!

Well, not really, though it might feel that way to anyone on the receiving end of one of your tackle-pounce-hugs!

Which is why the Signless is currently on the floor, and you are on top of him, hugging him hard. “You sleep long, miss you, don't do again!” 

The Psiioniic is standing off to the side, looking a bit awkward, but covering up a smile with a long, slender hand. 

“Shit, Huntress, you're killing my back, gogdammit!” Despite his protests, he's not trying to throw you off, so you don't budge; instead, you just cover his face with kisses. 

“Iii, uh, think I'm going to thee how Dolorotha ith coming on my thirt,” Psiioniic murmurs, and absconds. 

You grin as you kiss him more. He blushes terribly, his face very red. But now that the other troll is gone, he's kissing you back and his arms are around you. You rub your cheek against his and purr. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs. 

You don't reply in words, but you nuzzle against him close, humming happily. His fingers trail into your hair and his big hands close gently around fistfuls of it. You wriggle against him, straddling his hips, and dart your tongue out to lick his lower lip. 

He huffs out a breath, murmuring, “oh _fuck_ , Huntress,” and he kisses you back as if he's dying and you are the only one who can bring him back to life. You whimper slightly and your blood-pusher double-thumps in your chest and makes you breathless. And he steals the other part of your breath away when he kisses you. 

You've never felt anything like this before. Your body feels full of want, and you are burning, but not with fever. You keen, low in your throat, and you whimper, uncertain. He kisses you gently and murmurs soft, unintelligible reassurances. “It's all right,” he says, and his voice sounds whispery and hoarse. You make another soft sound. Your words have completely left you. Gently, so gently, he rolls you over onto your back, half on top of you, and touches your face, then nuzzles you, his nose against your cheek. You can hear him breathe in your scent, pushing his face into the curve of shoulder and neck. “You're so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, and you can feel him squeeze his eyes shut. “Every time I see your face, I know I'm going to make a gogdamned fool out of my self. I pity you so much and I want you so bad.” 

You don't know what to say back, mostly because speech is difficult for you at the best of times. Only one word occurs to you and it's the only one you can manage at the moment: “Yes...” You wriggle underneath him until he's covering you, and you look up at him. You might not know what this pity and more than pity feeling is, but you do know what you want, and that's _him._

“Gog, you're beautiful,” he murmurs again, and kisses you, soft and slow. You make a soft cooing trill, and he moans, and mutters, “Right here on the floor, I'm horrible, an awful matesprit...” 

You reach up and touch his face and murmur a soft, stuttery, “sshoooshh...” and thread your fingers into his hair and drag his head back down to yours. You grab his lower lip between your teeth, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to let him know that you want him. He keens softly and trembles, he _trembles_ above you and then...

...there's a knock on the door. 

Signless makes an absolutely heartbreaking sound, and you cradle him against you, panting. 

“Gogdammit, what?!” His voice is low and strained. 

There is a pause, and then the patient voice of the Dolorosa: “I...want the Huntress to try on the dress I designed for her.” 

You look up at him with wide eyes. He looks like he wants to explode in long rants that you would write in all capital letters if you were writing it in your book. But then he sighs and kisses your forehead. “She'll be out.” He looks back down at you and eases himself off, huddling on the floor for a few moments before helping you to sit up. 

He straightens out the clothing he's pushed aside and tenderly arranges your hair. He looks at you shyly and runs his thumb over your lip. “She gets impatient when she's creating something,” he says, and presses his lips together. Finally, he asks tentatively, “...another time?” 

Is he insane? “ _Fuck_ yes.” You lean forward and kiss him hard, and he falls back on his ass. You smile at him and go off to see what Dolorosa wants with you. 

==>Huntress: be a fashion plate

You can't be a fashion plate, because you don't know what one of those is! But Dolorosa helps you off with your clothes and helps you on with the dress she's made you. It's not a dress, really, it's more a set of leggings with a tunic, but there is a skirt that falls around your hips. She's even made you boots, sturdy and comfortable. You look at her shyly as she fusses with the fit, takes a stitch here and there to make sure it fits, then she pulls your hair back and behind your ears.

You're lost in thought, thinking of Signless and what nearly happened in the other room. And then she moves you to look at yourself in the full-length reflecting panel. “What do you think?” 

You look, and are immediately taken aback, because who is that girl in the reflective wall panel? 

==>Dolorosa: be proud of a successfully rendered garment. 

It's really a pity that trolls do not care about fashion, in general. Trolls were a terribly attractive and colorful race, and wearing all black, all the time, did not often enhance this attractiveness. Of course, Huntress had a style all of her own, mostly a style borne of necessity, but she had to admit that the fang-beast pelt was actually quite attractive on her, gave her an illusion of height and stature and ferocity. 

She had a sweet face when she first saw her, that's what Dolorosa noticed first. Her undeniably sweet face. And now that she had been with them for a few months, she had seemed to come into her beauty. 

And now, the Huntress can see it too. She blinks at her reflection in the mirror, tilting her head this way and that, confused, but with a smile pulling on her mouth. You are enjoying watching her. She turns around in front of the mirror, as if trying to see her back, and then notices the skirt, made of long strips of material hanging from the hip line. It sways when she moves and she gives her hips an experimental wiggle. One fingertip traces her symbol as it loops around her neck and over her breasts. She moves in it, crouches, stretches, lifts both arms over her head and moves her hips again, watching the motion of the skirt, and her mouth curves in a beaming smile, displaying all her perfect sharp teeth. 

And then, suddenly, she's throwing her arms around you and hugging you. “Pretty! Like!” 

You laugh as she kisses your cheek, and hug her back. “I am so pleased that you like it.” Over Huntress' shoulder, you see Signless, his mouth hanging open and eyes wide. When he sees you looking at him, he absconds quietly. 

Well. The festival tomorrow night should be very interesting, indeed. 

==>Dolorosa: Prepare for 12th Perigee's Eve 

You have been up for most of the day, getting things ready. You don't mind, it gives you joy to do so, and you have rested enough. None of these children—and they are all sweeps and sweeps younger than you, and so yes, to you they are children—have a lusus, and so you search for the behemoth leaving, as you had done when Signless was young. 

You prepare food and clean, and make sure the hive is warm and comfortable when everyone wakes. You remember other Perigee's Eves, ones with your lusus, when you were very small, basking in the dark before the leaving, and opening your gift. It was the warmest time you knew in a childhood full of warm times. 

Perhaps that is why you are a good caretaker for Signless. You'd had a gentle lusus, who had taught you everything you'd needed to know to be a good troll, and yet had taught you gentleness and kindness. It had served you well as a servant to the Mother Grub. And it had certainly prepared you for your role as Signless' caretaker. 

Psiioniic is the first troll awake, and after his ablutions, he comes out and stops stock still, looking at how she's decorated, his mouth open and his eyes wide. The years seem to fall away from his face and he looks like a child. You go up to him and touch his shoulder. “Happy 12th Perigees Eve, Psiioniic.” He looks down at you, and you reach up to wipe away yellow tears, and then you kiss his cheek. “Come, have something to eat.” 

==>Signless: watch Huntress sleep

You don't mean to! But you were on your way out of the respiteblock when you pass by her pile, and she just looks so sweet and contented. Peaceful. You sit on the floor and pull your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. It's 12th Perigees' Eve and you know Dolorosa is waiting for the two of you. But you just want to sit in the quiet for a little while, and look at her, watching the rise and fall of her chest with her breath, and the tiny pulse at her neck that beats with her blood-pusher. At her softly curled hand under her chin, at the other hand lying beside her, palm up, like a half-opened flower. 

_ I am such a fucking sap, and I'm a total creeper. I should go.  _ You sigh softly and then unwrap one arm from around your legs to stroke her hair gently. “Huntress,” you say, your voice softer than usual. “It's time to wake up.”

She makes a tiny, pitiful sound and opens her eyes. “Mrr?” 

You can't help it. You smile. Sometimes, she just makes you feel so  _light_ . “It's 12 th Perigee's Eve. Dolorosa is going to want to see our faces when we see how she's decorated. She loves to do it and she always outdoes herself.” 

She smiles. “You smiling. Is good.” She stretches out, arching her back and your mind goes off somewhere warm and quiet for a moment till she gets out of the pile. She sleeps in your old t-shirt and it hits right above the backs of her knees. It's really fucking cute. 

“It's 12th Perigees'. It'll happen a lot today.” Really, it's your favorite day. Everyone always seems to be in a decent mood, and even though you complain about it, you love the village festival. Dolorosa taught you to dance over sweeps and sweeps at the festivals, first with your tiny feet on hers, and then with you actually leading when you got older and stronger. 

“I like smile,” she says, and traces your lower lip with her thumb. She kisses you and then skips away in the t-shirt that hits right above the backs of her knees while you lose your balance and fall on your ass. _Again._

It just keeps happening.

You sit there awkwardly as you hear Huntress squeal upon seeing the decorations in the main room, her cry of “Pretty!” and the Dolorosa's laugh. You snort with laughter of your own, and go out to join your family. 

==>Huntress: be shy

You can't help it! Even though you have been following Signless for quite some time and dealing with crowds, and even though you can deal with crowds when you have to sell things, you are still not comfortable in them, and you walk behind the Dolorosa, hiding a little, when you all go to the festival. You are used to thinking of yourself as the lowest of the lowbloods, because you have no home and no lusus and no name, but with your family, you are important and treasured. You are still not entirely used to the dichotomy. 

But old habits die hard, and so you hide behind Dolorosa or follow closely behind Psiioniic while Signless greets old friends, old neighbors, in the town where he grew up. You are able to hide fairly well until Signless notices your absence when he wants to introduce you, and he gently pulls you out from behind Psiioniic. He introduces you around, and you wave shyly at his old friends and neighbors. He puts his hand on your hair gently, possessive. And you don't miss the fact that he's put a soft honorific in front of your name, the one that means 'matesprit'. 

It has never been discussed between you, however, it is truth. 

You flush brightly, and smile, biting your lip. You don't speak much, but you don't think anyone really minds. You listen, as you always have, and Psiioniic sits by you and he talks while you gesture. He's never been to anything like this, and you discuss what you are seeing. The Dolorosa gives you a mug of something that is warm and burns going down, and you aren't quite sure what it is but it sure makes you feel nice! You've never been anywhere where people were just _happy_ before, and there wasn't this undercurrent of people trying to kill each other. Maybe it's some sort of magic. 

And then the music starts. You don't really remember music very much, from before. Your version of music was your lusus' soft purring and the things you learned from the few friends you'd made before your lusus died. 

Psiioniic grins at you and you grin back and then you're distracted because people are dancing now. You haven't seen dancing in sweeps and sweeps. It's lovely. You lean your head on your hand and watch. And then the Dolorosa is pulling Psiioniic up to dance. “Come dear, you need some exercise after all that sleeping,” she murmurs. He gets up to go with her, protesting, “But I've never danthed in my life...” 

You watch them, and Psiioniic is awkward and clumsy and sort of adorable with the Dolorosa, who is smiling and laughing up at him. He's taller than she is, and she's up on her toes. 

And then Signless is tapping your shoulder gently. When you look up, a flush of red comes to his cheeks and he shifts shyly. “Um. Uh.” He's speechless. You look up at him and savor the moment. “...Shit, do you wanna dance with me?”

You blink up at him, but you put your hand in his. “Um, dunno how?” 

He tugs you up. “I'll teach you.” 

You follow along after him, uncertain, and then he moves you to face him. “Okay, now...the point of dancing is to make a connection with your partner.” You blush, and then he blushes too. “Uh, not like _that!_ Er. Or. Not _necessarily_ like that.” 

You grin up at him, your face still warm, and spread your hands, palms up, as if to say, “I am here, what shall you do with me?” 

He takes a breath and tugs you a bit closer. “First, up on your toes, and step close.” Oddly enough, doesn't feel like such an awkward position with you and he as it looks with Psiioniic and Dolorosa. His arm goes around your waist, and he gestures to his eyes. “Look at me. And I'll lead you, just...follow.” 

You look up into his eyes and grin. “When ever I not follow?” Your voice comes out softer than you expected it to. 

He just smiles. “Okay.” 

Dancing is nothing like you expected; you keep stepping on his feet. But he doesn't get angry and he just laughs. You've never seen him smile so much as he's smiling today. It does strange things to your blood-pusher but maybe it's also the way your eyes are riveted to his or the way his body feels against yours. You step on his feet again, and blush. “You're anticipating,” he says softly, against your ear. “Just let me lead you, wait till you feel me pull you, then move.” He pulls you closer with his arm around your waist, and he's so _warm_ against you. You sigh out your breath against his chest. He pauses a moment. “Okay?” 

You nod, not trusting your voice, and you look up at him again. His eyes are soft as he looks at you and you feel things go gooey in your stomach. And then you feel very, very... _red._ It's the only way you can describe it. You feel so red for him, and yes, yes, yes you want to mate with him, _yes._

He pauses as he looks down at you and swallows, you can see the movement of his throat as he does so, and it makes you _dizzy._ You lay your head on his chest again, and he cups the back of your head with one large hand. You can hear his blood-pusher thrumming under your ear. 

“We...not dancing.” You might not have danced before, but even you can tell that you aren't anymore. Not that you really mind.

“No,” he says quietly, his voice shaking a little. “We should sit. Talk.” 

You nod against him, but it's more like rubbing your cheek against his chest. He makes a soft sound that you wouldn't be able to hear if your ear wasn't pressed against him. He isn't moving. He is just holding you, in a secluded section of the dance area. You listen to his blood-pusher beating and if anything, it's speeding up. You're aching and needy and embarrassed. You don't know what to do. 

“I think we'd better...go back,” he whispers. He swallows again. “If you want to.”

“Yes. Okay, yes.” Was that too quick of a response? Your fingers clutch at his cape. He wraps it around you and holds you close, stroking your hair behind your ear gently. He buries his face in your hair. 

“You are the most pitiful creature I've ever seen,” he mumbles. “I can only hope you pity me as much...” 

Your blood-pusher feels as if it will explode out of your chest. You take his hand and push your face into it, kissing his palm. “Always.” 

  
  



	13. Evening

==>Signless: wake up 

The first thing you notice is that you are warm and happy. You haven't dreamed during the day. Instead, you've been drifting in a pleasant haze for the entire time you've been asleep. This never happens. 

The second thing you notice is that you're not in your recuperacoon and you are buried in a pile. And the third thing you notice, happening quickly thereafter, is that you have the Huntress in your arms, and she is naked, pressed warm against you, asleep. You shift a little, gently, trying not to wake her up. 

In sleep, she looks young and unburdened. You can almost feel it yourself. The soft curve of her lip is almost irresistible, but you resist that temptation for the moment, and instead stroke the pad of your thumb gently down her cheekbone and jawline. She makes a tiny sound and mumbles something unintelligible in sleep. She's so cute, it makes you ache. You reconsider getting up and snuggle down with her instead, dozing as you never let yourself doze, lazy and comfortable. 

She mumbles something again and curls up closer to you, one small hand coming up to twine in your hair. As you remember the previous night, the dancing, the drinking, and then just the overwhelming desire for her causing your brain to short-circuit, you wonder if she was really as okay with it as she had seemed to be. The thought that she might not be sends a jolt of pain through your blood-pusher.

“Huntress?” Your voice is low and quiet. 

“Mrr?” Shyly, she peeks one eye open. You can't help but smile, even if you are worried for her. 

“You're beautiful.” You can't help it. She's possibly the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen. You adore everything about her, every scar on her body, every angle and curve. 

She flushes green and hides her face in your shoulder. “I just me.” 

“Just you is perfect.” You caress her hair. “You okay?” 

She snuggles closer, nodding. You can feel the curve of her cheek against you as she smiles. “I your matesprit now?” 

You swallow hard. That tiny note of insecurity in her voice hurt. “I _want_ you to be. If...if you want.” Because you are most definitely not going to live very long. And the thought of her following you is like a physical ache. 

“Yes, yes, _yes_.” She tightens her arms around you, snuggling her face into your chest again. “But word is not enough. Feel more for you. Is...is too _big_ for that word.” She frowns. “Pity.” She makes a motion with her hands. “You.” She spreads her arms out, knocking some of the pile away from you. You laugh a little, uneasily but yeah. She's right. 

You hold her tight. “ _Yes_ , precisely. More than pity. More than moirallegiance. More than... _anything_.” 

She almost pounces you, and you can't help but laugh. This is _stupid._ You can't fit her neatly in a quadrant, you shouldn't even _be_ like this with her—but at the same time, this is right, _so_ right. 

There's a knock at the door and you hear a murmuring: “Ugh, why am I doing thith, I'm _intruding_ , fuck fuck fuck...” 

Huntress lets out a soft giggle and puts her hand over her mouth. You cradle her head to your chest. “What is it, nookstain?” You try to be gruff but your laughter is coloring it. 

Psiioniic makes a sort of helpless noise. “The Dolorosa has sent me to athk when you are going to make an appearanth tonight. Theriouthly, Signleth, theeth driving me nuth, really...” 

You chuckle again, warmly. “We'll be out in a few moments. Don't rattle your thinkpan.” 

“Oh, thank goodneth...” You hear him shuffle off and Huntress just giggles into your chest and yes, _fuck yes_ , she's purring. 

Best wake-up _ever._

==>Psiioniic: Okay, enough with the lovey-dovey bullshit

Okay, you were glad they were together, of course! For heaven's sake, why wouldn't you be? It was better than watching them dance around each other like two nervous chirpbeasts doing a courtship dance. But seeing him smile like that was just...weird.

But that night, you all sat around the table to discuss what you would do next. You felt better than you had in years, now that your powers weren't suppressed any more, and your teeth were growing back again, though you felt sort of conflicted about that. The lisp gets _so_ much worse when all your fangs are in. 

Huntress is taking notes, of course. Listening to you all speak and taking down notes. She is not touching Signless, but still, their connection remains obvious: the tilt of their bodies towards each other, unconscious, the way her eyes flick between all of you, but linger differently on Signless. 

And then Signless says the words that all of you know, but have never (but for you) voiced aloud. “I am going to die. The Empress will kill me. I will fail.” 

Your eyes, unconsciously, flick to Huntress. Her mouth is pressed in a tight line, but she nods slightly, and writes it down. Signless looks at you and you start explaining your visions, with him interjecting his own at appropriate places. They slot together so neatly. 

And when you're done, it's not Huntress who leaves the room to cry, though there are tears in her eyes and her cheeks and she butts her head against Signless' shoulder for comfort. 

It's the Dolorosa. 

==>Dolorosa: Grieve

You have closed yourself off on the porch, looking out at the twin moons of Alternia. 

You have always known that he would not live long. He was a mutant-blooded orphan, and now he is an outspoken rebel. He will not live out his years, you will never know how long a mutant blooded troll could possibly live. 

But to hear the words from his own mouth, to hear confirming words from his best friend (and yours, you think you might be moirails, actually), and to watch Huntress simply write all the words down with tears in her eyes and a trembling hand just...wrecks you. The moons are wavering, tinted jade green with your tears as you look at them. 

The grief wrenches up somewhere from your gut and out your mouth in the form of a wail and part of you is embarrassed at making such noise, especially for something you have always known. But the other parts of you want to howl out all of your pain and weep till you have no more tears left in you. 

The idea of Signless no longer _existing_ is grabbing your blood-pusher and ripping it from your chest, and you reach back for a chair, sitting down heavily. You put your face in your hands and sob for your charge. 

You eventually feel him as he kneels at your feet and lays his head on your lap, wrapping his arms around your hips. “I'm sorry, Mother. I'm so sorry. I don't wanna leave you alone and I don't want you to die.” 

You place your hands in his scruffy hair. “Your hair needs cutting,” you say softly. You'd had to practically tie him down for his first haircut and oh, the profanity... You manage to smile a little, through your tears. “So what have you decided?” 

“We're gonna get a boat.” 

“A boat,” you say softly, wonderingly. You have always loved the water, even though you've lived in the desert most of your life. But you've never actually been on the water. “And what will you do on this boat?” It should surely get the Condesce's attention. 

“We'll carry my message across the water. Give the Empress something to really hate me for.” 

You gasp because his words are like a lance through your chest. You drop your eyes and he has picked up his head and is looking at your face. 

“I can't just keep running. I know, in a way I _am_ running, but...I'm running towards it. I can...you can stay here.” He puts his head on your knee. “You can stay here, be safe. _They_ won't...they won't leave me, but you can stay here. Please. Just... _please._ ” 

You bend over and kiss his head. “When I first found you in that crater, I knew you would be trouble and you have not disappointed me. But it has always been the best sort of trouble. I will go with you, comfort you how I may.” _Although it will mean my death._ Not right away, perhaps, and not in any quick fashion. 

He makes a soft, grief-humming sort of sound, and you bend over him, his nubby little horns jutting into your stomach, but you do not care. “All will be as it should be, and we shall not be sad, for being together is a reason to rejoice.” 

He sniffs. “More poetry.” But there's a kind of affection for you in his voice, and you know he does not mind the poetry. 

“Poetry contains truth, and truth is our business in life.” You kiss the back of his head. “You have never turned your face from that, and I do not wish for you to start.” An idea occurs to you, then. “Signless. Did you use a bucket last night?” It is not always necessary, but most of the time, it was. 

“...yes.” 

“Do not throw it away. I will take it to the Mother and that will not take long.” You do not know how much longer you'll have, anyway. He sputters and blushes but his reaction is much less explosive than you thought it would be. You think that perhaps it's more than he could ask for, to perhaps have Descendants 

And...you want there to be Descendants. Especially of him. 

You think, perhaps, that Alternia will need them very badly in the future. 

==>Huntress: prepare

You are not stupid. 

You know that you are all going to die. That's fine by you, you've already had so much borrowed time, it was like a gift. And you've had more happiness than your life should be able to hold. A double gift, then. 

But the thought that Signless and Psiioniic and Dolorosa have to die is unbearably sad. And after Signless goes to follow his guardian, Psiioniic just sits there, looking lost. So you hug him. 

He makes a small surprised sound, flails a little, and then relaxes. “Huntreth, we're not moirailth.” 

You make a small 'mrr' and then say, “Want hug you.” 

“...okay.” He puts his arms around you. “I with I could thay thingth will be okay.” 

“I know. Not going to be.” It doesn't matter. 

“Wish it would be. Want to stay with you, Thignleth and Dolorotha forever.” 

You nod and hug him closer. He's too tall, and he has to slouch over almost painfully to hold you, but he doesn't seem to mind. You let him go after a little while and look up at him. He's got the most unhappy expression on his face, and you reach up to touch his cheek. 

“You with us. Till we go 'way.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “Not going anywhere.” 

You pat his cheek softly. You are not his moirail, whatever that means. You don't really know, or care, you're too old to do this properly anymore. 

You have all the quadrants you need. 

  
  



	14. ==>Prepare for the Journey

==>Signless: wait

The days are becoming shorter, and so is the brief respite you have had here. You're up far too early, the light is just fading into the horizon. 

You are waiting for Mother to return. 

It is possibly the longest you have ever been apart from her—it's been three days. Without her presence, you all feel her absence. Psiioniic is lost without her—definitely moirails with them—and Huntress waits for her as if the Dolorosa were her lusus, rubbing her cheek with the back of her hand. 

You? You're just missing her, feeling her absence like someone poked your bloodpusher with a red-hot spike. You're scared for her, out there by herself, ah why did you even let her go? You were never going to meet your Descendants, what did you care, why would you _ever_ want to saddle someone else with your mutant blood... 

“You no come sleep.” 

You jump out of your skin. You didn't even hear her come up behind you! “Fuckingdammit, Huntress!” 

“You no come sleep _why?”_

“I'm fucking worried, okay? I'm worried about Mother.” 

Huntress comes up to you and wraps her arms around yours, looking up into your face, and then looks out of the window. She rubs her cheek against your arm, warm. 

“We go look tomorrow.” 

You look down at her, and she reaches up to touch your face. It hurts you inside how understanding she is. She understands so much, and it scares you. You haven't asked her if she dreams about what you speak of. You haven't asked her if she sees a different world, like you do. 

You're scared to. You don't want to lose her, you don't want her to look at you like you're crazy. 

“You worry. You worry too much.” She tugs on your arm. “Come. Come sit.” 

She draws you back to the pile where she sleeps, buries the two of you in it. She curls around you, arms around your chest, legs twined with yours, and she looks down at you. “You need rest. If go look, you need strength.” She pushes down your hood, and puts her fingertips through your hair. You love it when she does that, it relaxes you, as long as she doesn't go for the base of your horns. 

She doesn't. You're almost sorry. But she keeps her fingers moving firmly over your scalp, carding through your hair, almost pulling but not so that it would hurt. Your eyes are beginning to close. She snuggles close, and you drift. 

==>Signless: WAKE THE FUCK UP

“Thignleth! Wake up! Dolorotha'th back!” 

In a snap, your eyes are open and you're out of the pile. Huntress rolls over with a little annoyed purr-beast sound and follows. 

Psiioniic has his skinny arms wrapped around the Dolorosa, who is filthy with desert dust and looks exhausted but is still smiling slightly. Huntress greets her enthusiastically and the Dolorosa presses a kiss into her messy hair, and then she looks at you, knowledge in her gaze, and reaches out and hauls you in for a tight embrace. 

“My darling,” she murmurs into your shoulder. “Your time is coming. And you must be ready.” 

==>Dolorosa: prepare your charge

It has been a very eventful few days. The reason it took you longer than it should have was that you still have allies amongst the jade-blooded caretakers of the Mother Grub. The news flows with the genetic material, from all over Alternia, the jade-blooded trolls who accompany the drones to get the material all over Alternia gathering news as they go about their rounds. Your allies gathered you in with open arms, and the flow of information was rapid, exchanged in hushed, worried tones. You had spent one full day hidden in an alcove, getting news and resting.

A sudden windstorm had come up on her return journey, and she'd spent several hours huddled in the cleft of a rock, and it had delayed her return. 

But the name of the Signless prophet had gained some notoriety, not just amongst the trolls who had actually heard him speak, but in the cities too. The retreat into the desert had been a smart one, for in his absence, his message caught sparks and blazed like wildfire, over the primitive messaging systems of the poorer trolls, over the more sophisticated communications of the more wealthy. 

The buzz was curious. _Who was this, who dared? Who was this, who did not even have a sign, nor a name, and no standing?_ Lowbloods and highbloods alike were talking about him. _Who was he to challenge the system?_

There had been a violent outbreak in the Capital City. 

When Signless hears that, he gets up abruptly and stalks away, upset. “That's not what my fucking message _means!_ I didn't-- why--?!” 

Huntress comes over to him, soothing, petting. You tell him, “It is not up to you what others do with your message. It is only your job to make them think. Revolution is never a neat and tidy thing.” 

“They're fucking _idiots_ , all it's going to gain for them is culling! I just...fuck. FUCK!” Huntress, upset that he's upset, frantically tries to shoosh him. 

“Ship good idea,” Huntress says, with difficulty. “You can tell them. Show them.” 

You look at the Huntress' face. She's looking up at him with an expression on her face that's so difficult to look at. She's hurting so very badly. 

“You know what comes next. You know what has to be. You've _seen_ it. You _know_ it. And we will be there for you, and we will spread the word.” Her vocabulary is almost flawless, as if she's been saving up all of her voice for this one moment. For all you know, she has. 

He looks down at her with such pity in his gaze, and you can see how much he's hurting inside. How much he loves you all. How much he doesn't want any harm to come to any of you. He pulls the Huntress to his chest, holding her against him tightly, bunching his fingers in her hair. He looks around at all of you, and then his face crumples in on itself.

Signless wept. 

==>Psiioniic: tend to the Dolorosa

When Huntress has led the Signless to his recuperacoon, you look over at the Dolorosa, filthy, tired, her tear stained cheeks sagging a little with weariness, and your blood-pusher hurts for her. You stand up, strong and able now, mostly thanks to her, and take her hand. “Come on. Let me take care of you.” 

She doesn't look at you, which hurts, but goes with you anyway. You bring her to the ablution block and draw her a bath the way you know she likes it: lukewarm, canting a bit to hot, with a spoon of lavender bath salts. You take off her clothing and shoo her in, and leave her to wash. You go out to make tea. 

Your heart hurts for many reasons, and the condition of the Dolorosa is just one of them. You feel as if you've just come to life, only to lose it again all too soon. You have friends for the first time in your life. You're safe, for all intents and purposes, you're safe here, with people who love you and whom you love. They take care of you, and you do what you can to take care of them: throwing up psionic shields when you suspect danger, sharing your visions with Signless. 

The pot-warmer whistles, and you make tea. 

You knock on the door before entering the ablution block. The Dolorosa has finished her ablutions and is wrapped in a worn and comfortable robe. You bring her the tea you've made and she accepts gratefully. As a second thought, you bend over to lift her up into your arms, bring her into the relaxation block, placing her on the sofa with her tea. She smiles wearily up at you and you sit beside her, putting your arm gently around her thin shoulders, and she leans into you, sipping her tea. 

Neither of you say anything. You don't have to. You drag your fingers lightly through her damp hair, and she makes a soft, deep sigh. When she puts her teacup down, you turn her towards you and wrap your long fingers around her face and kiss her over her forehead and cheeks, and once on her mouth. You gently work on knots of tension in her neck and back with your powers, and you can feel her relax. It makes you deliriously happy to feel that in her. She opens her eyes and looks at you again, with this painful kind of happy misery that you completely understand because it's the same thing you're feeling right now. 

It's _awful_. It's awful and wonderful and you wouldn't trade it for the world. You kiss her again and wrap her into your arms. She shudders against you, once, and then relaxes, quiet. You kiss her again, three times, between her horns. She sighs, a gurgling, happy thing and it sings right into your chest. You sigh out as well, and sleep. 

==>Huntress: prepare to leave

You don't want to leave, but you must. 

You would like to stay here forever with Signless and Dolorosa and Psiioniic. But you can't. 

So you sharpen your knives and you pack your medicines. You do what the Dolorosa instructs you to do. You pack each of the packs for their journey carefully, lots of water for everyone, dried meat, and other various dried things, extra clothing. Your pack also contains your book, your pens, and ink. 

You do not want to disassemble your pile. This was the pile that you slept with Signless in, where you consummated your matespritship. 

You _don't want to leave._ You don't want any of you to leave, you want to remain here, _safe_ , quiet. 

But that just isn't an option, and you know it. 

A pair of arms come around you from behind, and you don't react, save to close your eyes and relax backward into Signless' broad chest. You know his touch now, as soon as his fingers touch you, you always know who it is. 

“Stop a moment. Come here,” he says, his voice unusually soft and gentle. You turn in his arms and look up sadly. “Not leaving till tomorrow. I've asked for us not to be disturbed tonight. So stop fussing and packing and come rest here with me.” 

You let your shoulders slump with weariness and you lean your head against his chest. He holds you close, strokes your hair. 

“So much to do,” you murmur. He bends over and sweeps your feet out from under you, holding you in his arms. 

“You've done enough. Let others do it now.” He lays you gently on the pile and curls up next to you, pulling you close. “Every day I live now is one more day I get to exist in the same space as you. I'm going to savor every fucking one.” 

You blink up at him and hide your face in his chest for a moment before looking up at him again. You run your hands over his chest and up over his jawline, over his cheekbones and his eyebrows and his hair and his horns. You want to tell him, _You're so beautiful, so bright, I love your color, your eyes, your little horns, I like how you are gentle, please don't go away from me_ but as usual, all of your words are caught in your throat and you can say nothing. You butt your head beneath his chin and breathe in of his scent, letting it fill you. 

He presses his mouth upon your head, between your horns. “Rest,” he murmurs. “Just rest.” 

You let your eyes close and rest your head against his chest. You don't mean to, but Signless is so warm and his arms are so strong around you...

You sleep. 


	15. The First Ship

==>Psiioniic: observe  
  
It's a much better trip this time around. Your days in the desert, being taken care of in ways that you hadn’t been cared for since you were a tiny wiggler, have done you good. You feel better than you have in sweeps and sweeps. You feel strong—the Signless is still stronger than you but that's fine—you're tall but not as skinny as you were, and the Dolorosa is with you, and she makes you feel easy, in control.

  
Huntress and Signless walk up ahead of you, their fingers joined lightly. It was almost like a moirallegiance, the way they took care of each other. At least they weren't flipping red to black. He couldn't imagine that, as much as they fought and bickered sometimes. They never hit each other, though Signless would make some gestures at times, and Huntress would sometimes make a gesture back, pretending to threaten.

  
Psiioniic had often seen moirallegiances and matespritships amongst the highbloods he had served, and he knew how they looked. Even in the most flushed pairings, punches and scratches were commonplace, but not with these two. They never made violent contact, which was strange, beautiful and somehow, right.

  
You had two tents between the four of you, but you usually only set up one for the long days, sleeping huddled together in a pile. Sometimes, you wake to find yourself tangled up between the Dolorosa and the Huntress, with Signless' arm flung over them all and you and you feel so happy that you try to just go back to sleep, to hold on to the feeling of being together as long as possible. Even if you've had one of your prophetic dreams, you can manage to hold on to the good feelings being with them gives you.

  
It's weird, being happy. You think that even if the end comes far too soon, that you'll have been so grateful, just for this, for what you have now.

  
==>Huntress: Be unbalanced

  
It had taken some weeks to reach the shore, some small time to procure a ship, and Signless had taken some more time to preach. You noted that even in this busy port town, so many stopped to listen. You noticed that sometimes, there would be younger children in the crowd—so brave to venture from their hives into the dangerous city!--and they would linger longest, watching the four of you, sometimes venturing up to ask Signless or Dolorosa a question.

You think Signless likes the children best of all. They give him hope for the future.

  
You look up at the First Ship, uncertain. You have never even seen an ocean like this, and it seems to stretch out forever. You never really thought about how big the ocean was, but now it seems uncomprehendingly vast, something that could swallow up millions and millions of trolls and never become full. The ship sways gently in the water, the small crew of two trolls working on the rigging and checking the sails.

  
Psiioniic is helping to load your supplies onto the ship, and Dolorosa is arranging things in the small sleeping quarters belowdecks, and Signless is fretting. He wants everyone to be safe and have plenty of food, he wants everyone to be happy. You are standing and looking at the ship, and not for the first time, you are not very certain about this particular scheme.

  
“Huntress? Hey. It's time to go.” Signless is talking to you gently. He knows that you're afraid. You look over at him and sigh shakily. He puts his arms around you. “It's going to be okay. It'll be an adventure. You like adventures.”

  
You turn and bury your face into his shoulder. He kisses your hair and hugs you close. “It's going to be all right. It's going to be a grand adventure, Huntress.” He sighs shakily and you know he’s just as scared as you are.  
  
“Yes,” you say then. “Yes, an adventure.”    
  
==>Signless: embark  
  
You’re not precisely happy to do this. Sure, it was an idea you and the Psiioniic cooked up, but on the whole, you’d rather live a while longer. This will just shorten your life considerably.  
  
But this is what you were meant to do.  
  
And so you set off.  
  
Huntress gets sick within the first hour. She’s as tense as a purrbeast in water, unused to the rocking of the waves. You hold her hair back as she vomits into the water, she wraps up in her pelts down below, shivering and miserable, but still, she writes down every word of your sermons.  
  
You preach to the fishertrolls on the water, you preach to the seadwelling trolls who come up to your boat.  You preach in every port town in between the time that you left to the Capitol Port, and around the other side of the ocean.  
  
And even though Huntress isn’t looking very well, she takes down every word of your sermons and you love her for it.  
  
==>Huntress: find shelter from the storm  
  
What storm? Oh yeah, the one the boat is traveling through now! You are below decks, you have lost most of the food that you’ve consumed for the past day, and now you are struggling with the violent swaying of the boat. Psiioniic is trying to stabilize things with his powers, and Dolorosa is steadying him.  You have wedged yourself between two stable objects in hopes that it will help you not sway so much.  
  
You do not know where Signless is, and your imagination runs away with you. Did he fall over the side? Can he swim? will there have been beasts to devour him before he could start? You are tired and sick and you just want the boat to stop swaying and you want your stomach to settle down, and you want to stop feeling dizzy all the time. You’re just so tired and you haven’t spoken in two days and you’re scared. You want Signless to come back.  
  
Eventually, the boat stops it’s tossing to and fro, and eventually Psiioniic lets go of his powers, and Dolorosa tends to him when he’s done. They curl up in a pile together and go to sleep.  
  
Signless still isn’t back. You wrap yourself tighter in your pelts and scrunch yourself up small in the hull of the ship, which is now rocking ever so gently. You are so tired and worried. Where is Signless? You rock yourself until you fall into a fitful sleep, your body shivering with reaction.  
  
There’s something warm pressed against your back, warm arms around you, and  you can smell him even before you wake up, and you turn sleepily to throw your arms around him.  You’re still half asleep, still non-verbal, and you try to burrow your way into his skin.  
  
“Shh, shoosh...it’s all right. I’m here now.” He kisses you all over the top of your head, your horns, tilts your face up to kiss all over it. “I’m here. I’m sorry, I was helping them with the sails, but it’s okay now, it’s okay, I’m here...”  
  
His voice is your favorite sound in the world and you just want  him to keep speaking, but you want to crawl inside him first, you want him to be inside you. Your fingers make short work of his shirt, wet from the storm, and you pull one of the pelts over him as you undress him the rest of the way, kissing his chilled flesh warm and living again. He makes low sounds of pleasure, purrs, soft trills, and he pushes the two of you into a quiet, dark corner as he tugs your clothes off. He lays his finger to his lips for silence, and goes to grab a bucket, more so the two of you don’t make a mess than for any breeding purposes. He pushes you gently against the wall, eases off the rest of your clothing, and the two of you lean in close. You aren’t used to doing this without a pile, but Signless wedges the bucket between you, and braces you against a wall, and leans in. It takes a little struggle, a little tugging and pulling and a curse or two on Signless’ part, but finally you are entwined and you both are so quiet. He clutches you close, and leans his lips against your ear, and speaks to you of how much he cares for you, how much he pities you, how beautiful you are.  
  
His touch cannot do as much for you as his words, but you tremble and shake under his hands. His hands are cupping and stroking, his bulge is moving inside you, and you’re trembling, trembling and you will fall soon if he does not hold you, you’ll fall, you’ll fall--but then there are his hands, holding you while you spill into the bucket, whimpering, trembling, clinging to him with your claws and hands. You feel him tense and spill as well, his body hot, burning against your skin. You cling, panting, quiet.  
  
“It’s okay,” he murmurs against you. “You’re good, so good. Beautiful. Come on.” He puts away the pail so it’ll spill into the ocean, and brings you back into the shadows again, covering you both over with sleeping pelts, and he strokes your hair quietly until, finally, you sleep.  
  
==>Signless: regard your matesprit  
  
It’s little enough that you can give her, you think, as you watch her sleep and you remain awake and watchful. It’s little enough, you have no real home, you sleep in a different place each night, and not always in comfort. She never complains, never wants things that you can’t give to her.  
  
You could not ask for a better matesprit. You would never have asked for a matesprit at all if it hadn’t been her, if she hadn’t made herself indispensable to you, if you hadn’t pitied her as much as you do. She’s pale, life on the ocean doesn’t agree with her at all, and yet, she doesn’t complain. You pull the pelts around her more snugly and she falls deeper into sleep with the comforting tightness around her. It’s comforting and not restricting to her as long as you’re there. She trusts you so much.  
  
Right now, in the very pit of your stomach, lay two words: she shouldn’t.  
  
You’re going to get all of them killed. You cuddle her close, and she makes a small, satisfied little mrr sound in her sleep. Her mouth twitches up slightly, and relaxes again.  You sigh and nestle your face between her horns. “Sorry, Huntress,” you murmur.  
  
You remain watchful through the day.  
  
==>Be the Huntress  
  
The sweeps fly.  
  
It takes so long  to journey by ship through Alternia, preaching in every port of call, journeying over land sometimes to get to inland villages. Signless speaks to so many, but you take down all of this words, every last one of them. You (and your stomach) are grateful when you finally say farewell to the First Ship, but you also know that there will not be much longer that you have with him.  
  
Even you can hear the rumbles of what is coming for you. How the highbloods look at you. How the crowds part, and how doors close and shutters lock you out, though some still listen. Sometimes you even get to heal, with the remnants of the ointments you have not had a chance to replenish in years. But no one opens their doors to you anymore. You head to the outskirts of the villages after preaching, set up your two tents (or just one, depending on how cuddly all of you feel) to rest each day, and journey again, preach again, you hunt, you talk, you sleep.  
  
But you’ve spread the word. And the word will soon be condemning you.  
  
 **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm just realizing that this is rapidly coming to an end. I'm going to miss this fic. I've loved writing it. I've got a goodly portion of the end of this written so it shouldn't be nearly as long between updates.


	16. ==>Huntress: Battle

==>Huntress: Battle  
  
They come when you are sleeping, they come for Signless, and for the rest of you.  
  
One of the soldiers steps and breaks a twig, and you are instantly awake and in a crouch, your claws and fangs bared, your knives out. You stand over your loved ones, still too small, but vicious. You will defend them and do what you can, even if you fall trying.  
  
You lash out, and gold-orange blood, a cry of pain follows your knife. It gives  you no satisfaction; there are still dangers to Signless...    You can feel Psiioniic's powers rushing to surround you, like a hug, and you struggle to get away from them. You want to _defend!_  
  
“Huntress. Huntress. _Shooooosh,_ ” It's Signless, and he walks right through the psionics to stay your hand. The psionics change. The Psiioniic has tears on his cheeks and the Dolorosa is holding on to him. The psionics are weak, just keeping away the soldiers. “It's over.” He sounds so weary, so unutterably weary, but. But.  
  
You shake your head, and he's blurring in front of you because tears are filling your eyes. “No! _NO!_ You not die, you not die you _can't_ you not die no...” He's shaking his head at you, and you are so... _angry_ at him! It can't be the _end_ it _can't_ be the end because you are not _done_ with him!  
  
But then he tells you _shooosh_ again and your chest loosens up and despair enters in, and your hands go slack and your knives fall away. He kisses your forehead and then he's taken away from you, bound in chains, and they take you roughly, they take your pelt and they strike in retaliation to your attack until you fall, and they clap you in chains, and you are all chained together.  
  
And then you walk. None of you speak.  
  
You walk for two nights, and they chain you to a post outside to wait the blazing days out in the open, and the four of you huddle together as far as your chains allow and protect each other as best you can from the blazing Alternian sun. You have burns down your back, even through your clothing, and your captors take great delight in slapping the burns and they continue to do so until you cry out. And then they laugh at you.  
  
Signless shouts at them for hurting you, or the Dolorosa, or Psiioniic, but it only serves to get him beaten. Psiioniic is so deep within himself that he just looks tired and sad. The dampening collar prevents him from using any of his powers, and he stumbles and trips without his extra senses. And the Dolorosa has not stopped weeping silently, and you are worried that she will die of dehydration before anything else. But despite her weeping, she carries herself straight, and her head is unbowed. Somehow, that gives the Psiioniic a reason to keep walking, gives Signless a reason to keep shouting.  
  
You love when he shouts. It tells you he hasn't broken, that his soul is the same soul that you adore, that he's still your matesprit, no matter what they’ve done to him.  
  
==>Huntress: Arrive  
  
You have never been to the Capitol City before. The buildings are taller than the tallest trees in your jungles, and they make fear squeeze your chest. You pull at your chains, trying to get closer to Signless, but you're still too far away.  
  
You just want to touch him. Just...for a moment. But you can't.  
  
But they take you into the Halls of Justice, there to await trial. A hood is put over your head as soon as you enter; you will never know how to get out, if you could ever escape. In darkness, you are pushed and pulled, you can no longer hear the breathing of your friends, you can no longer smell Signless, you can no longer feel the dulled psionics. Your senses are so dulled that you cannot tell where you are, or what is happening to you.  
  
When you are finally released and left alone, you lie there in the cool for a few moments, waiting for your senses to come back. Scents come to you: Signless is near, as are Psiioniic and Dolorosa, but their scents are less strong than Signless'. You realize that you're flat on the floor of wherever they've thrown you: the floor is stone. You can move your arms and you push off the sense-dampening hood.  
  
At least it's dim. They could have thrown you somewhere with bright light. But then how would they guard you? You sit up and look around you: it's a cell, with bars thicker than your arms across the front: a little longer than you are tall, and a little wider than you are wide. There is a parody of a load gaper on the wall in back of you, but no privacy, not that you were expecting any.  
  
You crawl to the front of your cell, looking out.  
  
Signless is so close, so close, but you are separated by less than eight feet of corridor and two thick barred cell doors. He's still on the floor, the hood still over his head. You wonder if he's conscious. You press yourself up against the door as close as you can get, pressing your face between the bars, ignoring the way your horns bump.  
  
You make a tiny, sad sound because your words are gone and haven't come back yet. You get on the floor and reach through the bars towards his cell. You make that tiny, sad sound again, that small cry, and he finally stirs, slowly. You can tell he's in pain, and the knowledge sends a chill all through you.  
  
He uncovers his face, and meets your eyes.  
  
You reach towards each other, through the bars, on the floor. Your entire arm is through the bars, your shoulder hurts because you're straining just to reach his hand, as he is just as desperately trying to reach yours.  
  
You can't reach, not even to touch a fingertip.  
  
But you've passed out, so you don't register the disappointment enough to cry.  
  
==>Huntress: wait  
  
Much of what you do over the next few days is wait. Wait for the meager meals to be served you. Wait for the “interrogation sessions” where they ask you no questions, but still torture you for having no answers. Wait for sleep. Wait to wake.   
  
You have not had physical contact--except to be beaten--since you got here. You have not spoken but to cry or scream. But at least you can see Signless in his cell across from you, you can smell him. It is excruciating to be parted from him like this. Sometimes, during the brightest part of the day when you really should be resting, you stick your arm out between the bars and reach out towards him as far as you can go, and he'll reach back, and sometimes, sometimes, if neither of you have been hurt too much and you can stretch, you can barely touch the end of your middle finger's claw to his.  
  
For over two sweeps, you have barely been out of touching range of each other. And now, all you have is a tiny touch of a body part with no nerve endings.  
  
The others are near you, closer, but you can't see them, though you would gladly die to see Psiioniic or Dolorosa again. You know they're in the cells next to you, but you can't see them.  
  
You weep again when they remove Signless from his cell for interrogation. You are always terrified that you will not see him again. You do not know whether to be glad to see him when they bring him back, with his bright blood spilling from him, trailing on the floor.  
  
It's the blood that makes you absolutely certain he will die, as if you didn't know this already. You do not fear for yourself, in fact, if he dies, you would rather go with him than to live a life without him near you. You have lived a life on stolen time, and you do not think you have the heart to live any longer if he is not with you.  
  
You fall into a stupor of sorts. You aren’t asleep, but you’re not really awake, either. You travel, in your head. You’re a wiggler in your lusus’ paws again. You’re a little girl, making her first friends online. You’re running through the jungle. You go earlier, and later, one moment you’re a child, the next, an adult, and the next...well, you’re not precisely certain where you are. You’re with your friends, and others, all colors, all shapes of horns, so different, everyone working together, playing together, and Signless’ name isn’t Signless but it’s him, and not him, and you’re you, but not you, but...it’s his vision.   
  
You don’t understand.   
  
It is quiet, near dawn, and the screaming in the prison block has mostly quieted, though you can hear sobbing in the next block, you can hear murmuring, you can hear the scratching, scratching of tick-marks in the wall: _one night, two nights, fifty nights, one hundred._  
  
You hope it will not be one hundred nights for you.  
  
“Huntress.”  
  
His voice is so quiet, quieter than you've ever heard it. It is hard for you to speak in return, but you manage a soft “Mine?” and he huffs out a breath of weak laughter.

“Fuck, of course _yours_. Always _yours_.” He coughs: a wet sound. Not good, you know it's not good, and even if they weren't going to kill him, you know that he wouldn't be long. His breath is labored. “It's tomorrow.”  
  
You shut your eyes and sigh because you knew right before he told you what was coming. Your sigh ends with a pained little whine, and you know he hears it. “Will follow.”  
  
He sighs and you can tell he is weeping a little. “I know. You always do,” he says thickly. “I wish...”  
  
“I know.” He wants everyone safe. He wants peace. Nothing else but peace. He worries about Psiioniic and Dolorosa.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, a pained whisper, and coughs again. Something is broken inside him: something besides his blood-pusher, perhaps. You hear him spit.  
  
“No. Wanted to come. Wanted. _You_.” You get off of your side and crawl to the bars, reaching out even though you know you can't reach him, you can't touch him. You smash your face against the bars, you want to get _close_ to him.  
  
It all becomes clearer, now. Who he is, who _you_ are. What you were meant for, and it’s this, _only_ this. He has to know it. You have to tell him.  Somehow. Before your words go completely. You have to let him know it’s all right.   
  
“I...I... _b'lieve_.” You don't usually remember the word “believe”, and it's a difficult word for you to even say. You make an extra effort, even though your words are disappearing, one by one. “I...uhmember... _remember._ ”  
  
He looks over at you, the red streaks of tears on his cheeks catching dim light from the windows, and you are moved once again to heights of pity—and of whatever it is that you cannot name, rushing through you—you have never experienced before. You want him with you, you want him under your hands, you want to _make it all better again_. Your lips part, and you want to say more, but your words are gone and all that comes out of you is a miserable, soft, whining howl.  
  
His face crumples. “Oh _fuck_ , Huntress...”  
  
The brokenness in his voice sets you off again, though you are not very loud, because your voice is nearly gone. “ _Mine_. Mine, _mine_ ,” is all the intelligible speech you are able to make, and then you are whimpering and howling your pity again, the pity-and-something-more that you have always felt for him, will feel until your last breath.  
  
And then you hear, faintly: _“Shoooooosh.”_ You do not have to be told that it's the Psiioniic, because the hiss of the 's' is lost in his lisp, but Signless immediately quietens and so do you. When it is quiet, you can hear the Dolorosa from a distance, her voice soothing and even: “Even though I cannot see you, I am with you, my darling.” She pauses. When she continues, her voice is filled with pain, though still full of the comfort she always provides. “It will all be over soon. And then you can rest.”  
  
There's a soft, choked sound from the cell across the hall, a shuddering sigh, and then: “Yeah.”  
  
“Don't worry about uth,” Psiioniic says softly. “Whatever happenth, it'll be over thoon.”  
  
You want so badly to see them again. You wrap your arms around yourself and rock.  
  
“Huntress.” The Dolorosa is calling for you and you make a soft, kittenish inquiring noise.  
  
But she doesn't say anything.  
  
She just hums, a simple, soft melody, the one she would use when Signless was awake and talking to Psiioniic and you would have nightmares and couldn't sleep. She would cradle you like a little wiggler and stroke your hair and hum you back to sleep.  
  
Despite your emotional state, you curl in on yourself and you begin purring, the soft noise only interrupted by the occasional stuttering sob.  
  
When the humming stops, there is only silence.  
  
You fall into an uneasy sleep.  
  
==>Be Signless  
  
You aren't sleeping. There's no way you're going to be able to sleep, so you're not even trying. It's the last few hours you're going to be alive, and you're glad of it. You have known that your time is short for a long, long time. You only hope that somewhere, someone picks up the message you tried to convey and spreads it. You only hope that your life hasn't been lived completely in vain.  
  
You are so fucking _tired._  
  
You wish you could see your friends one more time, touch them. You grieve for them. You wish you could bargain for their lives, but you are in no position to ask for anything. The only thing you can really hope for now is that their deaths are swift and less painful than yours is going to be.  
  
You look across at the shape of the Huntress, curled up miserably in a heap, her hand still outstretched hopelessly towards you. You can smell her, and you want so badly to just pick her up and hold her, bury your face in her hair. Listen to her fucking cat puns, and her purring and the way she'd nuzzle her nose up to yours, rub her cheek against yours. Scent-marking. _Gog._ You take a deep, shuddering breath, and then cough again. Your chest hurts. Something's probably broken in there, not that it matters much now.  
  
You look over at her again. She twitches in sleep and whimpers, her hands fisted in her hair. Her lower lip wobbles.  
  
You lie on the floor, facing her. God, you want to hold her _so fucking much._  
  
And now, you never will again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I'm so, so sorry. 
> 
> It doesn't get any better. :(


	17. ==>Huntress: wake up

==>Huntress: Wake up.  
  
You wake to the sound of chains. You sit up abruptly and roll to your knees and grab onto the bars.  
  
They are putting chains on Signless' wrists: interlocking shackles stained with old blood, you can smell it on them, even from here. They hold his hands close in front of him. They have taken his hood. He looks so vulnerable without it. You get to your feet, shoving your face against the bars, inhaling, wanting to smell him, if you can't touch him. He looks over at you, and his mouth moves, makes a single sound: “Shooosh...” His voice is soft.  
  
The guards slap him hard, and his head rocks on his shoulders.  
  
“Please,” you murmur. _“Please.”_ You don't know who will care, who will want to even honor the last wishes of a condemned prisoner, but you make the plea anyway, stretching out your hands.  
  
The officer in charge looks at you impassively. There is no room for pity or mercy in the halls of justice. The blue-blooded troll just sneers at you, leans over and whispers in Signless' ear, quiet, but loud enough for you to hear: “She's going to watch what we do to you. Every moment. She'll watch you die. And then we'll kill her.”  
  
You know this. You don't care what happens to you, since you're doomed anyway. All you want, all you want right now is to touch him just once, just once, _just once..._  
  
They are entering your cage, opening the door right in front of you, and you don't move. They clasp shackles tight around your neck and wrists, but you don't look at them, you look at Signless. It's the first time in nearly a perigee that you haven't had bars in front of your face when you look at him. And you're close, still not close enough to reach him but closer. “Please,” you murmur again. “Please, please.”  
  
“S-s-shoosh,” he murmurs to you again, his voice, the voice that drew you to him, stuttering in his throat, his eyes riveted to yours while he can look, and still see you.  
  
You can't bear it. You dart forward, arm outstretched, and close the small distance between you. Your hand touches his cheek, strokes downward once, his skin damp with tears and sweat. It's a moment that stretches—his eyes close half-way before you are jerked back cruelly from him and your chains are twisted up in the fists of the guards.  
  
But he looks at you, and you look at him, and you know what it means. _Good-bye._  
  
He is led out in front of you, and his back is straight, even if his head is bowed. You are led behind him, and you hold your head high because you are watching him. As you are being marched out, more guards bringing the Psiioniic and Dolorosa follow. Neither of them look whole anymore, and the Dolorosa especially looks as if her blood-pusher has been cut out.  
  
They march Signless up to the flogging jut, his wrists enclosed in manacles. Your chains are secured to a post a short distance away. Just far enough away so that you cannot reach him, but you will be able to see quite clearly everything that will be done to him, see what it will do to him. You look at the others, sequestered from you, parted from you by metal fencing. Psiioniic looks back at you. He's got a strange headset on, and it is dampening the hum of the psionics you've always felt from him.  
  
He is resigned, his arms limp in his bindings. There's a little mania in his red-and-blue eyes that tells you if he weren't subdued, this place would be in danger of burning down.  
  
The Dolorosa is, like you, stretched out as far as she can go on her chains, as close to the Signless as she can get. Her eyes are wild and her hair—usually always in place, never messy—is flat and shapeless, hanging in her face as if she's the wild one out of the four of you. Her eyes follow the motions of what the guards are doing.  
  
And your eyes return to the Signless.  
  
The manacles are heating up. The shape of them, encasing his wrists, burns itself into your thinkpan, curling red, red in your mind's eye. They begin to scourge him, and you see his eyes bright with pain, helpless and scared. He presses his lips together so as to not make a sound, he doesn't make a move, huffs pained breaths. He looks at you, straining to keep his mind on you, only you, but his pain only increases.  
  
And then Signless starts screaming, screaming and cursing, when it all becomes too much to bear. You strain forward on your chains, whimpering with the desperate need to help him even though you know there is nothing you can do. You strain so hard you nearly make yourself pass out because you are choking yourself with your own chains. You can feel him, his pain, almost as if you are taking the lashes for him. Tears are streaming down your face, and in your mind, it's just you and him.  
  
You can't help screaming with him. You know it's hopeless, but you reach for him anyway, arms and fingers wanting to pull themselves out of joint to reach him. You howl with him in grief and pain, and when it all turns to rage, you burn with him, transcendent and insane. You can feel everything right now, feel how he's blaming himself, _hating_ himself, hating the system but not hating, _not hating_ the trolls who are doing this to him. And then he's cursing, cursing everything, and then it all. Just. Stops.  
  
You fall silent abruptly, tasting blood in your mouth. You can hear the others breathing beside you, whimpering tiny pained exhalations.  
  
The Dolorosa is keening in grief, her clasped hands to her mouth. Psiioniic's fists are clenched and you can feel the hum of his powers trying to get free. The hall is in an uproar, but you can't hear them—your family is dying.  
  
==>Huntress: look  
  
You look, and there is an arrow in Signless' side, and he is limp in his bindings, the red-hot irons beginning to fade now that he is dead. While the clamor around you seems to grow, he looks oddly...peaceful. The way he looks when he is exhausted and asleep in your arms.  
  
The guards strip him of what little he has on his body, but his trousers are torn, stained with his blood, sweaty. They toss them at you with sneering words you do not understand and do not care to. You kneel there with what's left of the trousers that Dolorosa so carefully made for him, and clutch the fabric to you, because they won't let you touch him. You stroke and kiss and rub your cheek against the filthy fabric and you do not care because your eyes are on him as they release him from the jut. You watch.  
  
You watch because you will not let him die without someone seeing it. You watch as they take his body, careless. His head knocks on the floor when they let him fall from the jut, and you flinch silently, your eyes dry because you cannot cry any longer. You watch as they drag him out of sight, leaving a trail of his blood on the floor.  
  
==>Huntress: watch  
  
You watch as they lead Dolorosa away, her body beaten down, jade-colored bruises fresh on her cheek, her dress torn to scraps. Ragged sobs shake her frame, growing fainter and fainter till you cannot hear them anymore.  
  
The Psiioniic looks at you, and one corner of his mouth lifts as yellow tears cover his cheeks. He manages a soft touch with his abilities, the faintest: _Good bye._  
  
And then they take you, and you do not much care where you go. Perhaps they can tell, because they remove your chains and put you in target range of a large, blue-blooded troll. You know he must be the archer who had dealt the killing blow to Signless. It's only fitting.  
  
Your book is gone, but the knowledge of his words is in your head. You have no name, and you barely even exist, now that they are gone. It only makes sense to kill you. You kneel on the kill floor, and you clutch the bit of stained fabric in your hands, looking up at the troll who will kill you, who killed Signless, and you think that maybe he would be proud of you because _you don't hate him._  
  
The noise is insane in the room. There are trolls cheering and shouting, all of the sounds combining in your ears to make white noise. You are shivering because you cannot keep yourself warm any longer. Everyone probably thinks you're frightened, but you are past caring.  
  
You are ready to die. You _want_ to die. You didn't think you had any tears left but there they are again, coursing down your face quietly. It doesn't matter any more.  
  
The E%ecutor draws back the arrow in the bow, and levels it at you. You clutch the ragged fabric of the trousers in your hands, and you wait.  
  
The E%ecutor's eyes are covered with eyeshades and you cannot see them, but you can practically smell his uncertainty—though why there should be uncertainty with this task, you cannot fathom. You are nothing, and you never really have been anything, there's no reason to hesitate.  
  
 _Why is he hesitating? Why?_  
  
You can see him lowering his bow. You whimper because you are cowardly, and you just want it to be over. You are so tired. Your body is screaming for death.  
  
“Go.” When you don't move, he flails his arms helplessly. “Go! Just go!” The crowd of trolls around you seethes with outrage. The clamor is deafening.  
  
Your eyes widen at his voice, and despite yourself, you raise up on your feet. His voice makes something in your body quieten. What is he saying?  
  
His bow and arrow clatters to the floor and he gestures. Despite the roar of the crowd, you can still hear him. “Go, for goodness' sakes, _GO!”_  
  
And then, his voice, _his_ voice, in your head: _Run, fuckdammit!_ Your eyes widen with shock, and you make not another sound, and you do not hesitate any longer. You run, and despite how they are crying for your blood, trolls step aside for you to pass them. You run, and you do not stop.

  
The sun is rising and burning and you just keep running. You run till you come to a cave, and then you collapse, out of the sunlight and hidden.  
  
Safe.  
  
Quiet.

  
  
Alone.


	18. ==>wake up

_And they cut the Signless Sufferer down from the flogging jut, thumping his head against the hard stone most grievously, and the Dolorosa made great moan and the best-beloved Disciple howled most piteously._  
  
 _The guards stripped his body and threw the clothing at the Disciple, who cradled the tatters in her hands as if they were treasures, but kept her eyes on the body of the Sufferer, who trailed his bright blood over the stones as the body was taken away to be incinerated. The guards taunted her, but she did not react._  
  
 _And I saw them drag the Disciple away, and she stood small but straight, and though they forced her to her knees, her head was unbowed. The E%ecutor took aim, and pulled back on his bow, with her in his sights, but so moved was he with pity for the little greenblooded Disciple that he bellowed at her to flee from the Hall of Justice, and though she hesitated, she soon ran through the bellowing crowds of trolls, absconding with the Sufferer’s clothing, never to be seen again._  
  
 _And while the crowd yet howled for blood, I saw the Dolorosa, her eyes empty and sad, clapped in slave-chains, sold, it is said, to a pir8, to meet her sad end a short time later._  
  
 _And I saw the Psiioniic, his great powers subdued and harnessed, led off to be the Helmsman of the Condescension’s flagship. It is said that he hangs there still._  
  
 _But that day, I thought to myself, “There is no justice on Alternia, and we have been greatly robbed.”_  
  
 _On that day, I decided to keep the message alive by any means necessary._  
  
 _~Book of the Attestor, 134:60-79_  
  
== >wake up.  
  
Nighttime.  
  
There is liquid dripping somewhere, water dripping. You do not remember where you are for a few moments.  
  
And then you remember.  
  
You do not get up.  
  
==>wake up  
  
The night falls again.  
  
You remember again.  
  
You get up and sigh, and peer out at the night. The forest is unfamiliar but you can hear the sounds of animals roaming around the forest.  
  
You do not have your knives anymore, so you'll have to improvise.  
  
You go out and kill things, eat the meat raw. The blood is still under your claws, down your face. You do not care.  
  
Day falls.  
  
You sleep.  
  
==>wake up.  
  
Someone is shaking your shoulder. You put up your hands instinctively to block them, and a voice says, “I am not here to hurt you.”  
  
You huddle in a ball. You do not want to see them. You do not want to see anyone ever again. They aren't _him_ , aren't _them_ , and you don't deserve to be alive.  
  
But the person who has disturbed you simply strokes your back kindly, murmuring soft words of reassurance to you. _Shooshing_ you. Finally, you open your eyes. “You probably do not remember me,” she says. “But I was there when you came to heal Signless after the firebomb attack. It was my hive that you came to.”  
  
You blink at her and yes, you do recognize her. You remember. You nod and say nothing. You have no heart to speak.  
  
She pulls you up and gives you food, and then she just holds you, and rocks, murmuring, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”  
  
You simply lean your head on her shoulder and let yourself be rocked.  
  
She tells you about the others, about their fates. It isn't fair. _You're_ the one that should be imprisoned, _you're_ the one that should be enslaved. You should have died. You don't matter, you don't fucking _matter_ , but you're the one that's _free_. And _alive_.  
  
 _Why?_  
  
The young Legislacerator lays knives before you. “You need weapons and I know they took your knives. I need to go. But I wanted to find you.”  
  
You nod, and rub your cheek against hers unhappily. _Thank you._ She pets your head and heads off into the night.  
  
== >Time: pass.  
  
And so it does. Eventually, you fall into an almost-bearable routine. You stay in the cave.  
  
You kill animals all night. You don't eat all the meat, by the time you're done, you have what you want, and you drain the blood from the animals, reserve some meat for yourself, and leave the rest for the poorer trolls. You think Signless would like that.  
  
All night long, you write on the walls of the cave with your fingers, his sermons, his words, his actions. You work really hard on it. You can almost hear him speaking to you in your head. And it's comforting.  
  
You don't speak. And you sleep only unwillingly, when you pass out on the floor of the cave, your fingers soaked in the blood of animals.  
  
Time passes. You don't keep track.  
  
It doesn't matter any more.  
  
Over the (long, almost unbearable) sweeps, sometimes trolls will come to your cave, ask you questions, but you do not speak. If you acknowledge them at all, it is only to gaze at them quietly, blinking, and then go back to your task. They leave you things, sometimes, small offerings of meat, or the pelt of a great beast to cover yourself with during the long, lonely perigees. The chill reaches you so much more of late, and there is no one to warm you.  
  
Sometimes, you hear the scratching of pens on paper, taking down your writing, his words. You are unbearably grateful for it.   
  
You weep sometimes to think of that—that his words, somehow, will go on, written down by more people than just you. You're more grateful than you could ever express, especially as your body ages (quicker than it should) and your mind grows forgetful, and you know that the end of your sweeps of torment are close.  
  
It is a relief to know that he will not pass from memory so easily.  
  
==>Legends: grow  
  
They talk only occasionally about the Signless Sufferer in hushed voices: but the mention of his name aloud, the writing of his name in books, even private ones, brings harsh and swift retribution.  
  
Through the ranks of the adult trolls leaving Alternia forever, it's safer to speak of the Psiioniic, and his everlasting punishment upon the Condesce's battle ship.  
  
Safer to speak of the gentle Dolorosa, and her sad end as the slave of a pir8.  
  
Safer still to speak of the nameless Disciple, who fled, never to be seen except by those who choose to seek her out: a dangerous journey through the deepest of Alternian jungles.  
  
And some young trolls still under the guard of their lusus sometimes spoke of mysterious gifts of fresh meat, left on their doorsteps when they wake in the evening. **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions about my fic, rude remarks, etc, I can be found at [my tumblr.](http://shellebelle93.tumblr.com/)
> 
> This is probably the saddest story I wish wasn't sad that I've ever written. (wow that makes no sense) I'm actually sorry to finish because I've enjoyed writing the Huntress/the Disciple and the rest of them. ...there may be another story but I'm not entirely sure it'll make sense. :)


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